dovecot - Jun 2010 - dovecot: pop3-login: Internal login failure - howto add dovecot users that are NO server users

Hi all

my Linux system: opensuse 11.2
my mail system: postfix - dovecot

my key problem since several days googling and testing is:

how can I have a pop account with dovecot for a user if that user is NO
linux system user

it appears to me that most auth mechanisms somehow expect a mail user
also to be a linux system user  either to be found in the 
/etc/passwd
or
/etc/alias

on my 4 servers I have NO users at all registered, NO login at all for
any normal user - incl me. I strictly work as root and with serverkey
auth on a tightly secured system since many years

my goal is to have the most simple possible mail system - one user to
send/receive (me) may be a very few friends with a pop3 account - that's
that I have since many years - using cyrus.

now I want to move to dovecot and I missed somehow since many days
searching to find a simple howto add mail users - just for mail - pop3
and smtp, no imap, no home directory, etc

I think that most of the errors I get in my mail log are about user
unknown, I try different variations of postfix main.cf found in www the
result always is some error like the newest

dovecot: pop3-login: Internal login failures - below the last mail log -
after I added a user to /etc/passwd

hans:x:1000:100:xxxx yyyyyyy::/sbin/nologin

-------------

dovecot: auth(default): client in:
AUTH#0111#011PLAIN#011service=pop3#011secured#011lip=127.0.0.1#011rip=127.0.0.1#011lport=110#011rport=53082#011resp=AGhhbnMASThDc2F3TzgxRHhjUmVNOHVCaDBM
dovecot: auth(default): passwd-file(hans,127.0.0.1): lookup: user=hans
file=/etc/dovecot/passwd
dovecot: auth(default): client out:
OK#0111#011user=hans
dovecot: auth(default): master in:
REQUEST#0112#01115510#0111
dovecot: auth(default): passwd(hans,127.0.0.1):
lookup
dovecot: auth(default): master out:
USER#0112#011hans#011system_groups_user=hans#011uid=1000#011gid=100#011home=
dovecot: dovecot: Relative home directory paths not supported (user
hans):
dovecot: pop3-login: Internal login failure (auth failed, 1 attempts):
user=<hans>, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, secured 

-------------

WITHOUT the user hans entry in /etc/passwd

I get the following mail log errors

-------------

Jul  1 02:43:01 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default): new auth connection:
pid=17860
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default): client in:
AUTH#0111#011PLAIN#011service=pop3#011lip=78.46.101.111#011rip=124.108.51.96#011lport=110#011rport=50152#011resp=AGhhbnMASThDc2F3TzgxRHhjUmVNOHVCaDBM
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default):
passwd-file(hans,124.108.51.96): lookup: user=hans
file=/etc/dovecot/passwd
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default): client out:
OK#0111#011user=hans
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default): master in:
REQUEST#0112#01117840#0111
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default):
passwd(hans,124.108.51.96): lookup
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default):
passwd(hans,124.108.51.96): unknown user
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default):
userdb(hans,124.108.51.96): user not found from userdb passwd
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: auth(default): master out:
NOTFOUND#0112
Jul  1 02:43:22 kriyayoga dovecot: pop3-login: Internal login failure
(auth failed, 1 attempts): user=<hans>, method=PLAIN, rip=124.108.51.96,
lip=78.46.101.111

-------------


any help or pointer to a solution or howto setup dovecot pop3 accounts
for non-system users would be MOST welcome


greetings

hans
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL:
<http://dovecot.org/pipermail/dovecot/attachments/20100701/04dbf917/attachment-0002.bin>

Hans Neukomm wrote:
> any help or pointer to a solution or howto setup dovecot pop3 accounts
> for non-system users would be MOST welcome
> 
> 
> greetings
> 
> hans
> 
See here: http://wiki.dovecot.org/AuthDatabase/PasswdFile

If you still need help after reading over that, post output of `dovecot -n`

Thanks Thomas

that helped a lot
auth problems now solved

I also had to change the dovecot.conf

mail_location = mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/home/%u
to
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir

because I got too many permission errors - NOT sure if this is correct
now for POP3-only mail without any imap ...

still some other stuff to fix - like mail sent to me disappears etc :)
and/or stays in mailq


greetings

hans


On Fri, 2010-07-02 at 09:35 +0200, Thomas Leuxner wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 02, 2010 at 06:30:21AM +0800, Hans Neukomm wrote:
> > auth default:
> >   mechanisms: plain cram-md5
> >   debug_passwords: yes
> >   passdb:
> >     driver: passwd-file
> >     args: /etc/dovecot/passwd
> >   userdb:
> >     driver: static
> >     args: uid=303 gid=303 home=/var/spool/mail/home/%u
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > my userdb file contains:
> > 
> > hans    myplaintext-password-here
> 
> http://wiki.dovecot.org/AuthDatabase/PasswdFile
> 
> [...]
> If you want to enable user at domain logins but have only "user"
in the
> file, set this to %n. 
> 
> passdb:
>    driver: passwd-file
>    args: username_format=%n /etc/dovecot/passwd
> 
> Try that format and see if it helps.
> 
> Regards
> Thomas
>