Filesystem level backups?

[Steve Atkins]

Up until now I've been backing up my IMAP server by taking an atomic snapshot 
of the entire VM, so I've not really had to worry about it. I'm moving to 
hosting where I have neither VM snapshots nor a filesystem that can take 
snapshots, so I need to think about consistent backups a bit more.

Will a simple backup of all the files of an multi-dbox give me a consistent 
state when I recover, or do I need to do something (e.g. lock writes to the 
mailbox) while I run a backup?

(I could use doveadm backup if I were backing up to local storage I controlled, 
but I'm pushing it to offsite buckets so I'd prefer to avoid backing up the 
entire thing locally, then copying that offsite).

Cheers,
  Steve

Re: lda fails in parse_angle_addr if sieve is enabled

[Bernard Spil]

Hi all,

Reverted back to 2.2.34 and pigeonhole 0.4.22 and (after reverting
config changes) it's working again including Sieve.

I was notified of commit
https://github.com/stephanbosch/dovecot-core/commit/6553f20bb31b5f0eebb73a0db526f00816b47d71
which I'll try. It's in a different option -f (not -d) but will try.

Cheers, Bernard.

2018-04-08 20:10 GMT+02:00 Bernard Spil :
> Hi,
>
> Since updating to 2.3.1 on my FreeBSD mailserver mail delivery using
> lda is broken if I have sieve enabled.
> (Before updating this was 2.2 and pigeonhole 0.4)
>
> FreeBSD 11.1-p8 amd64
> Dovecot 2.3.1
> Pigeonhole 0.5.1
>
> Mailflow is OpenSMTPd as MTA, using mda delivery to rspamc which
> utlimately delivers using dovecot-lda.
>
> smtpd.conf
> deliver to mda "rspamc -h scan --mime -e
> \"/usr/local/libexec/dovecot/deliver -d %{user.username}\""
> %{user.username} is the local user after virtusers, aliases etc.
> verified using a shell wrapper and capturing the username.
>
> conf.d/15-lda.conf
> protocol lda {
>   mail_plugins = $mail_plugins sieve
> }
>
> maillog:
> Apr  8 19:36:54 email smtpd[6390]: smtp-in: Accepted message 9db769b1
> on session 81939f0d30337a47: from=,
> to=, size=2871, ndest=1, proto=ESMTP
> Apr  8 19:36:54 email smtpd[6390]: smtp-in: Closing session 81939f0d30337a47
> Apr  8 19:36:55 email dovecot:
> lda(user2)<21091>: Panic: file
> message-address.c: line 147 (parse_angle_addr): assertion failed:
> (*ctx->parser.data == '<')
> Apr  8 19:36:55 email smtpd[6390]: delivery: TempFail for
> 9db769b13edef5a7: from=, to=,
> user=bernard, method=mda, delay=1s, stat=Error ("")
> Apr  8 19:36:57 email smtpd[6390]: smtp-out: Closing session
> 81939f0c09f5140b: 1 message sent.
> Apr  8 19:37:04 email dovecot:
> lda(user2)<21102>: Panic: file
> message-address.c: line 147 (parse_angle_addr): assertion failed:
> (*ctx->parser.data == '<')
> Apr  8 19:37:04 email smtpd[6390]: delivery: TempFail for
> 9db769b13edef5a7: from=, to=,
> user=bernard, method=mda, delay=10s, stat=Error ("")
>
> Removing sieve from mail_plugins configuration and restarting
> Apr  8 19:37:32 email dovecot: master: Warning: Killed with signal 15
> (by pid=21106 uid=0 code=kill)
> Apr  8 19:37:32 email dovecot: imap(user2)<21085>:
> Server shutting down. in=774 out=5373 deleted=0 expunged=0 trashed=0
> hdr_count=0 hdr_bytes=0 body_count=0 body_bytes=0
> Apr  8 19:37:32 email dovecot: master: Dovecot v2.3.1 (8e2f634)
> starting up for imap, lmtp, sieve
> Apr  8 19:37:35 email dovecot:
> lda(user2)<21134>:
> msgid=<32984450d041e5c2f887bed5f6512...@example.org>: saved mail to
> INBOX
> Apr  8 19:37:35 email smtpd[6390]: delivery: Ok for 9db769b13edef5a7:
> from=, to=, user=user2,
> method=mda, delay=41s, stat=Delivered
>
> Mail gets delivered.
>
> Don't understand why it is looking for a <>-address if sieve is enabled.
>
> Cheers, Bernard Spil.

lda fails in parse_angle_addr if sieve is enabled

[Bernard Spil]

Hi,

Since updating to 2.3.1 on my FreeBSD mailserver mail delivery using
lda is broken if I have sieve enabled.
(Before updating this was 2.2 and pigeonhole 0.4)

FreeBSD 11.1-p8 amd64
Dovecot 2.3.1
Pigeonhole 0.5.1

Mailflow is OpenSMTPd as MTA, using mda delivery to rspamc which
utlimately delivers using dovecot-lda.

smtpd.conf
deliver to mda "rspamc -h scan --mime -e
\"/usr/local/libexec/dovecot/deliver -d %{user.username}\""
%{user.username} is the local user after virtusers, aliases etc.
verified using a shell wrapper and capturing the username.

conf.d/15-lda.conf
protocol lda {
  mail_plugins = $mail_plugins sieve
}

maillog:
Apr  8 19:36:54 email smtpd[6390]: smtp-in: Accepted message 9db769b1
on session 81939f0d30337a47: from=,
to=, size=2871, ndest=1, proto=ESMTP
Apr  8 19:36:54 email smtpd[6390]: smtp-in: Closing session 81939f0d30337a47
Apr  8 19:36:55 email dovecot:
lda(user2)<21091>: Panic: file
message-address.c: line 147 (parse_angle_addr): assertion failed:
(*ctx->parser.data == '<')
Apr  8 19:36:55 email smtpd[6390]: delivery: TempFail for
9db769b13edef5a7: from=, to=,
user=bernard, method=mda, delay=1s, stat=Error ("")
Apr  8 19:36:57 email smtpd[6390]: smtp-out: Closing session
81939f0c09f5140b: 1 message sent.
Apr  8 19:37:04 email dovecot:
lda(user2)<21102>: Panic: file
message-address.c: line 147 (parse_angle_addr): assertion failed:
(*ctx->parser.data == '<')
Apr  8 19:37:04 email smtpd[6390]: delivery: TempFail for
9db769b13edef5a7: from=, to=,
user=bernard, method=mda, delay=10s, stat=Error ("")

Removing sieve from mail_plugins configuration and restarting
Apr  8 19:37:32 email dovecot: master: Warning: Killed with signal 15
(by pid=21106 uid=0 code=kill)
Apr  8 19:37:32 email dovecot: imap(user2)<21085>:
Server shutting down. in=774 out=5373 deleted=0 expunged=0 trashed=0
hdr_count=0 hdr_bytes=0 body_count=0 body_bytes=0
Apr  8 19:37:32 email dovecot: master: Dovecot v2.3.1 (8e2f634)
starting up for imap, lmtp, sieve
Apr  8 19:37:35 email dovecot:
lda(user2)<21134>:
msgid=<32984450d041e5c2f887bed5f6512...@example.org>: saved mail to
INBOX
Apr  8 19:37:35 email smtpd[6390]: delivery: Ok for 9db769b13edef5a7:
from=, to=, user=user2,
method=mda, delay=41s, stat=Delivered

Mail gets delivered.

Don't understand why it is looking for a <>-address if sieve is enabled.

Cheers, Bernard Spil.

Re: 2.3.1 Replication is throwing scary errors

[Reuben Farrelly]

Hi,

[Formatting is a bit rough, replying from a trimmed digest email]


Message: 1
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 15:04:35 +0200
From: Michael Grimm 
To: Dovecot Mailing List 
Subject: Re: 2.3.1 Replication is throwing scary errors
Message-ID: 
Content-Type: text/plain;   charset=utf-8

Reuben Farrelly wrote:

From: Michael Grimm 



[This is Dovecot 2.3.1 at FreeBSD STABLE-11.1 running in two jails at distinct 
servers.]
I did upgrade from 2.2.35 to 2.3.1 today, and I do become pounded by error 
messages at server1 (and vice versa at server2) as follows:
| Apr  2 17:12:18  server1.lan dovecot: doveadm: Error: 
dsync(server2.lan): I/O has stalled, \
no activity for 600 seconds (last sent=mail_change, last 
recv=mail_change (EOL))
| Apr  2 17:12:18  server1.lan dovecot: doveadm: Error: 
Timeout during state=sync_mails \
(send=changes recv=mail_requests)
[?]
| Apr  2 18:59:03  server1.lan dovecot: doveadm: Error: 
dsync(server2.lan): I/O has stalled, \
no activity for 600 seconds (last sent=mail, last recv=mail 
(EOL))
| Apr  2 18:59:03  server1.lan dovecot: doveadm: Error: 
Timeout during state=sync_mails \
(send=mails recv=recv_last_common)
I cannot see in my personal account any missing replications, *but* I haven't 
tested this thoroughly enough. I do have customers being serviced at these 
productive servers, *thus* I'm back to 2.2.35 until I do understand or have 
learned what is going on.


In my reply to this statement of mine I mentioned that I have seen those 
timeouts quite some times during the past year. Thus, I upgraded to 2.3.1 
again, and boom: after some hours I ended up in hanging processes [1] like (see 
Remko's mail in addition) ...

doveadm-server: [IP4/6  SOME/MAILBOX import:0/0] (doveadm-server)

? at server2 paired with a file like ?

-rw--- 1 vmail dovecot uarch 0 Apr 3 16:52 
/home/to/USER1/.dovecot-sync.lock

Corresponding logfile entries at server2 are like ?

   Apr  3 17:10:49  server2.lan dovecot: doveadm: Error: Couldn't 
lock /home/to/USER1/.dovecot-sync.lock: \
   fcntl(/home/to/USER1/.dovecot-sync.lock, write-lock, F_SETLKW) locking 
failed: Timed out after 30 seconds \
   (WRITE lock held by pid 51110)

[1] Even stopping dovecot will not end those processes. One has to manually 
kill those before restarting dovecot.

After one day of testing 2.3.1 with a couple of those episodes of 
locking/timeout, and now missing mails depending with server your MUA will 
connect to, I went back to 2.2.35. After two days at that version I never had 
such an episode again.


It's not just you.  This issue hit me recently, and it was impacting
replication noticeably.  I am following git master-2.3 .

[...]

There is also a second issue of a long standing race with replication
occurring somewhere whereby if a mail comes in, is written to disk, is
replicated and then deleted in short succession, it will reappear
again to the MUA.  I suspect the mail is being replicated back from
the remote.  A few people have reported it over the years but it's not
reliable or consistent, so it has never been fixed.
And lastly there has been an ongoing but seemingly minor issue
relating to locking timing out after 30s particularly on the remote
host that is being replicated to.  I rarely see the problem on my
local disk where almost all of the mail comes in, it's almost always
occurring on the replicate/remote system.


It might be time to describe our setups in order to possibly find common 
grounds that might trigger this issue you describe and Rimko and myself ran 
into as well.

Servers:Cloud Instances (both identical), around 25ms latency apart.
Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX) (3092.91-MHz K8-class 
CPU)
Both servers are connected via IPsec/racoon tunnels
OS: FreeBSD 11.1-STABLE (both servers)
Filesystem: ZFS
MTA:postfix 3.4-20180401 (postfix delivers via dovecot's LMTP)
IMAP:   dovecot running in FreeBSD jails (issues with 2.3.1, fine with 
2.2.35)
Replication:unsecured tcp / master-master
MUA:mainly iOS or macOS mail.app, rarely roundcube


For me:

Servers:Main: VM on a VMWare ESXi local system (light
load), local SSD disks (no NFS)
Redundant: Linode VM in Singapore, around 250ms away
Also no NFS.  Linode use SSDs for IO.
There is native IPv6 connectivity between both VMs.
As I am using TCPs I don't have a VPN between them -
just raw IPv6 end to end.
OS: Gentoo Linux x86_64 kept well up to date
Filesystem: EXT4 for both
MTA:Postfix 3.4-x (same as you)
IMAP:   Dovecot running natively on the machine (no jail/chroot)
Replication:

Re: changed behavior for dovecot-lda in 2.3.x

[Stephan Bosch]

Op 4/7/2018 om 10:16 PM schreef Martin Waschbüsch:
> Hi all,
>
> Hey all, I upgraded to dovecot 2.3.1 (from 2.2.34) and noticed that the 
> behavior for dovecot-lda changed. Apparently it no longer accepts -f "" or -f 
> "<>?
> With 2.2.34, both were accepted now I get:
>
> root@mail:~# /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-lda -f "<>"
> lda(root): Fatal: Invalid -f parameter: Null path not allowed
>
> or
>
> root@mail:~# /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-lda -f ""
> lda(root): Fatal: Invalid -f parameter: Path is empty string
>
> I guess this must be a bug? I mean, envelope sender *must* be empty for 
> bounces.

That is definitely a bug. Fix is available here:

https://github.com/stephanbosch/dovecot-core/commits/lda-fix-allow-empty-sender

Fix will be merged after internal review.

Regards,

Stephan.