I'm trying to configure dovecot to give me a mix of virtual and real
users. It's working fine for my real id.

But it's not working for my antlists virtual id :-(

I know it's the authentication messing up, but I don't know what or how
to fix it - I don't use anything more complicated than /etc/passwd, and
it looks like it's desperate to use pam.auth and getting itself all in a
twist.

If I create the dovecot passwd file with

antlists:{PLAIN}password

thunderbird complains that there's a problem with the server.

But if I use htpasswd to create the entry in the passwd file, it complains pam_faillock(imap:auth): User unknown

So as a complete guess, I'm thinking maybe htpasswd and dovecot are
using different encryptions? I just don't have a clue how to get them on
the same page ...

Cheers,
Wol

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/09/2021 22:46, antlists wrote:

I'm trying to configure dovecot to give me a mix of virtual and real
users. It's working fine for my real id.

But it's not working for my antlists virtual id :-(

Is nobody else using virtual addresses for dovecot?

I know it's the authentication messing up,  but I don't know what or how
to fix it - I don't use anything more complicated than /etc/passwd,  and
it looks like it's desperate to use pam.auth and getting itself all in a twist.

If I create the dovecot passwd file with

antlists:{PLAIN}password

thunderbird complains that there's a problem with the server.

But if I use htpasswd to create the entry in the passwd file, it complains pam_faillock(imap:auth): User unknown

I've been trying a bunch of stuff, and it boils down to "how the hell do
I get the password to match?"

If I have the line

antlists:password

it rejects my attempt to connect with "login failed", and systemctl says "password mismatch". But if I try to put an encrypted password in there,
the attempt to connect fails with "server disconnected".

So basically, how on earth am I supposed to get dovecot to either accept
the password I give it, or let me set the password!

(Of course, I could just give up and create a real user, but I was
hoping to avoid that!)

Cheers,
Wol

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Hi Wol,

my credentials for dovecot have the following syntax, i.e. four additional colons after the password:
'<user name>:<type of the password><password itself>::::'
I use only virtual users, so I can't tell if mixing works, too.

For the dovecot setup I can recommend this guide: https://prefetch.eu/blog/2020/email-server/#mda-dovecot

Two general remarks:
1st, be more patient. This is a mailing list, not a support chat.
2nd, I _strongly_ recommend to use some kind of hashing instead of plain passwords. I use '{ARGON2ID}' and generate the hashes by running
'doveadm pw -s ARGON2I'
which asks for the plain text password on stdin.

Kind regards,
Nils

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 29/09/2021 12:06, Nils Freydank wrote:

Hi Wol,

my credentials for dovecot have the following syntax, i.e. four additional colons after the password:
'<user name>:<type of the password><password itself>::::'
I use only virtual users, so I can't tell if mixing works, too.

For the dovecot setup I can recommend this guide: https://prefetch.eu/blog/2020/email-server/#mda-dovecot

Looks quite a good guide ...

Two general remarks:
1st, be more patient. This is a mailing list, not a support chat.

I know :-) but I thought 24hrs would lead to at least one bite ... :-)

2nd, I _strongly_ recommend to use some kind of hashing instead of plain passwords. I use '{ARGON2ID}' and generate the hashes by running
'doveadm pw -s ARGON2I'
which asks for the plain text password on stdin.

Yup. But it's a home server and security is pretty lax anyway...
And having problems full stop I thought I'd try and get it working
before worrying about hashing - I've already tried hashing with exactly
the same results ...


These are the logs reported by systemctl ...

Sep 29 22:01:11 thewolery dovecot[1328]: auth-worker(4883): conn unix:auth-worker (pid=4881,uid=76): auth-worker<1>: passwd(antlists,192.168.1.65,<0zFJoSjNUfnAqAFB>): unknown user
Sep 29 22:01:11 thewolery dovecot[1328]: auth: Error: passwd(antlists,192.168.1.65,<0zFJoSjNUfnAqAFB>): user not found from userdb Sep 29 22:01:11 thewolery dovecot[1328]: imap: Error: auth-master:
login: request [2101346305]: Login auth request failed: Authenticated
user not found from userdb, auth lookup id=2101346305 (auth connect>
Sep 29 22:01:11 thewolery dovecot[1328]: imap-login: Internal login
failure (pid=4880 id=1): user=<antlists>, method=PLAIN,
rip=192.168.1.65, lip=192.168.1.218, mpid=4882, TLS,
session=<0zFJoSjNUfnAqAFB>
Sep 29 22:01:11 thewolery dovecot[1328]: auth-worker(4883): conn unix:auth-worker (pid=4881,uid=76): auth-worker<2>: passwd(antlists,192.168.1.65,<3ddJoSjNUvnAqAFB>): unknown user
Sep 29 22:01:11 thewolery dovecot[1328]: auth: Error: passwd(antlists,192.168.1.65,<3ddJoSjNUvnAqAFB>): user not found from userdb Sep 29 22:01:11 thewolery dovecot[1328]: imap: Error: auth-master:
login: request [2807693313]: Login auth request failed: Authenticated
user not found from userdb, auth lookup id=2807693313 (auth connect>
Sep 29 22:01:11 thewolery dovecot[1328]: imap-login: Internal login
failure (pid=4884 id=1): user=<antlists>, method=PLAIN,
rip=192.168.1.65, lip=192.168.1.218, mpid=4885, TLS,
session=<3ddJoSjNUvnAqAFB>

and from dovecot.conf

# authentication configuration:
auth_verbose = yes
auth_mechanisms = plain
passdb {
driver = passwd-file
args = /etc/dovecot/passwd
}

userdb {
driver = passwd-file
args = username_format=%n /etc/dovecot/passwd
override_fields = uid=vmail gid=vmail home=/home/vmail/%n
}

Cheers,
Wol

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 29/09/2021 22:15, antlists wrote:

On 29/09/2021 12:06, Nils Freydank wrote:

Hi Wol,

my credentials for dovecot have the following syntax, i.e. four
additional
colons after the password:
'<user name>:<type of the password><password itself>::::'
I use only virtual users, so I can't tell if mixing works, too.

For the dovecot setup I can recommend this guide:
https://prefetch.eu/blog/2020/email-server/#mda-dovecot

Looks quite a good guide ...

Don't know quite how, but having followed the guide, and cursed becasue
it wasn't working, it suddenly started working.

I'm guessing a reboot suddenly fixed the the mess of multiple attempts
to get it to behave ...

Cheers,
Wol

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)