In the future please attempt to mentally parse a bug report before marking it as invalid. Yes I do understand how syslog works. Note that reporting a bug != to fixing a bug. If I have to download .src packages and sift through source files and postinst scripts in order to describe precisely what the problem is, I might as well fix the bug myself. Most users are not going to go to these lengths. Yes, in working on this I've discovered a number of problems with the default rsyslog.conf configuration file which I will log against that package. Here are the issues which remain with dovecot-postfix and which should have been easily read from my not-quite-precise bug report:
1. Because the installation of postfix/dovecot-postfix makes some minor changes to the rsyslog configuration, I believe the postinst script for postfix should probably restart the rsyslog daemon -- currently it doesn't do this. This might be the reason why mail logs weren't logging properly initially to /var/log/mail.*. 2. Part of the confusion is that smtp traffic is logged to both /var/log/mail.* and /var/log/syslog; this is a bug (in my opinion) in the default rsyslog configuration file /etc/rsyslog.d/50-default.conf *.*;auth,authpriv.none -/var/log/syslog --should be-- *.*;auth,authpriv,mail.none -/var/log/syslog The unreconcilable problem has to do with trying to log IMAP traffic to yet a different log file, say /var/log/dovecot. If in fact there is no way to make this work, then that option should not appear in the file /etc/dovecot/dovecot-postfix.conf. In that file, one finds the following text: # Log file to use for error messages, instead of sending them to syslog. # /dev/stderr can be used to log into stderr. #log_path = If I add the line log_path = /var/log/dovecot and restart dovecot, postfix, and rsyslog (for good measure), the system is no longer able to accept incoming smtp traffic, with the following appearing in the /var/log/mail.log and/or /var/log/syslog when a message arrives from another system: Oct 12 17:12:48 ibis postfix/local[470]: 96D8941012: to=<pgo...@internetbs.com>, relay=local, delay=0.34, delays=0.24/0.01/0/0.09, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/dovecot: Permission denied ) The only way to make this work is to sudo chmod 777 /var/log/dovecot which I think we all agree is not appropriate for system logs on a multiuser system. The following configuration: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-postfix.conf: (only sections with changes to default shown) -------------------------------- # Log file to use for error messages, instead of sending them to syslog. # /dev/stderr can be used to log into stderr. #log_path = log_path = /var/log/dovecot # Log file to use for informational and debug messages. # Default is the same as log_path. #info_log_path = # Prefix for each line written to log file. % codes are in strftime(3) # format. #log_timestamp = "%b %d %H:%M:%S " log_timestamp = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S " # Syslog facility to use if you're logging to syslog. Usually if you don't # want to use "mail", you'll use local0..local7. Also other standard # facilities are supported. #syslog_facility = mail syslog_facility = local0 -------------------------------- /etc/rsyslog.d/50-default.conf: (only sections with changes to default shown) -------------------------------- # # First some standard log files. Log by facility. # auth,authpriv.* /var/log/auth.log # ORIG *.*;auth,authpriv.none -/var/log/syslog *.*;auth,authpriv,mail,local0.none -/var/log/syslog #cron.* /var/log/cron.log daemon.* -/var/log/daemon.log kern.* -/var/log/kern.log lpr.* -/var/log/lpr.log mail.* -/var/log/mail.log user.* -/var/log/user.log local0.* -/var/log/dovecot.log -------------------------------- results in exactly the same problem with deferred incoming SMTP traffic. I looked through the dovecot source code and frankly the way logging is handled seems to be a bit of a mess. However, the use of dovecot deliver by postfix must be the reason that trying to enable IMAP logging results in the failure of delivery of SMTP traffic. This is fine, I can live with having both SMTP and IMAP traffic logging to /var/log/mail.*, but in this case these comments/options should be removed from the default /etc/dovecot/dovecot-postfix.conf file to avoid confusing the hapless user who tries to use options mentioned in the comments which don't actually work. Since beginning this investigation I've done a dist-upgrade to karmic beta; of course I can't speak to any changes in the default config files, as mine have been modified. -- postfix ignores the rsyslog configuration directives https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/434986 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs