Hello everyone,
I am currently working on porting the Dovecot 2.4 configuration from the
latest 2.3 version.
During this process, I encountered issues with the Sieve filters,
particularly those related to SQL dict mappings.
The previous (2.3) configuration looked like this and worked:
map {
pattern = priv/sieve/name/$script_name
table = sieve_before
username_field = username
value_field = id
fields {
script_name = $script_name
}
}
map {
pattern = priv/sieve/data/$id
table = sieve_before
username_field = username
value_field = script_data
fields {
id = $id
}
}
This resulted in the following SQL queries on the MySQL server:
2025-08-15 11:01:29.237511 SELECT id FROM sieve_after WHERE script_name =
'active' AND username = '[1][email protected]'
2025-08-15 11:01:29.236416 SELECT id FROM sieve_before WHERE script_name =
'active' AND username = '[2][email protected]'
As you can see, there are SQL mappings for sieve_before and sieve_after,
alongside a local file loaded prior to the SQL settings, as they are
user-based.
In Dovecot 2.3, everything worked and the scripts were executed. In 2.4,
however, they no longer run.
I adapted the configuration for dict SQL mapping for Sieve filters
according to the documentation:
dict_map priv/sieve/name/$script_name {
sql_table = sieve_before
username_field = username
value_field id {
}
# The script name field in the table to query
key_field script_name {
value = $script_name
}
}
dict_map priv/sieve/data/$id {
sql_table = sieve_before
username_field = username
value_field script_data {
}
key_field id {
value = $id
}
}
This also results in the dict proxy querying the database with the same
pattern as before:
2025-08-15 11:11:47.175184 SELECT id FROM sieve_after WHERE script_name =
'active' AND username = '[3][email protected]'
2025-08-15 11:11:47.172952 SELECT id FROM sieve_before WHERE script_name =
'active' AND username = '[4][email protected]'
2025-08-15 11:11:47.155786 SELECT id FROM sieve_after WHERE script_name =
'active' AND username = '[5][email protected]'
2025-08-15 11:11:47.136030 SELECT id FROM sieve_before WHERE script_name =
'active' AND username = '[6][email protected]'
However, unlike in 2.3, it now queries the DB twice.
In the Sieve debug logs, I see the following:
[7]https://pastebin.com/PTKkLsDQ
Notably:
Aug 15 12:22:24 43664c142e0a dovecot:
lmtp([8][email protected])<2407><mPFNN2AKn2hnCQAAhwrv7A>: Debug: Local
delivery failed: Temporarily unable to access necessary Sieve scripts
This line concerns me.
Here are the current Sieve script declarations:
sieve_script before {
type = before
driver = file
path = /var/vmail/sieve/global_sieve_before.sieve
}
sieve_script before2 {
type = before
driver = dict
name = active
dict proxy {
name = sieve_before
sieve_script_bin_path = /var/vmail/sieve_before_bindir
}
}
sieve_script after {
type = after
driver = file
path = /var/vmail/sieve/global_sieve_after.sieve
}
sieve_script after2 {
type = after
driver = dict
name = active
dict proxy {
name = sieve_after
sieve_script_bin_path = /var/vmail/sieve_after_bindir
}
}
# Personal scripts
sieve_script personal {
type = personal
driver = file
path = ~/sieve
active_path = ~/.dovecot.sieve
}
The dict proxy configuration, pointing to the dict_map SQL query above,
looks like this:
dict sieve_after {
driver = sql
!include /etc/dovecot/sql/dovecot-dict-sql-sieve_after.conf
}
dict sieve_before {
driver = sql
!include /etc/dovecot/sql/dovecot-dict-sql-sieve_before.conf
}
Thanks for your guidance.
Kind regards
Niklas Meyer
Maintainer of the mailcow project
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email protected]
2. mailto:[email protected]
3. mailto:[email protected]
4. mailto:[email protected]
5. mailto:[email protected]
6. mailto:[email protected]
7. https://pastebin.com/PTKkLsDQ
8. mailto:[email protected]
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