Dist-upgrade debian: dovecot nightmare

UPDATE: I posted a solution in this thread here.

Background: I did a dist-upgrade from debian squeeze to debian wheezy. Everything went well but dovecot was making problems because of its ssl-certs. I ended up backing up /etc/dovecot/* and purge dovecot. Ispconfig version is 3.0.3, that hasnt been upgraded yet.

Reinstalling Dovecot didn't work well. I could not get the imap server to work correctly.

Question: What is the best way forward? Rerun the original ispconfig 3.0.3 setup on Wheezy?

Technical details

First I had SASL errors like

Code:

postfix/smtpd[20182]: fatal: no SASL authentication mechanisms

in /varlog/mail.err
I kept trying all kinds of advice I found other people got when upgrading dovecot. I hardly understand this Dovecot mess.
I now have errors like

Code:

Jul 20 00:40:39 srv1 dovecot: imap(xxx@yyy): Error: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information.
Jul 20 00:41:18 srv1 dovecot: auth-worker(21634): Error: sql(xxx@yyy): User query failed: Unknown column 'disablelda' in 'where clause'

I changed the queries and harcoded disableimap instead (/etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext )

Code:

# new lda fix: https://www.howtoforge.com/community/threads/dovecot-lda-fatal-unknown-user.48149/
password_query = SELECT password FROM mail_user WHERE email = '%u' AND disableimap = 'n'
user_query = SELECT email AS user, maildir AS home, CONCAT('*:storage=', quota , 'B') AS quota_rule FROM mail_user WHERE email = '%u' AND disableimap = 'n'

For refence the changed configurations:

Code:

$ dovecot -n
# 2.1.7: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# OS: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 x86_64 Debian 7.11
disable_plaintext_auth = no
log_timestamp = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S "
mail_location = mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
namespace inbox {
  inbox = yes
  location =
  mailbox Drafts {
    special_use = \Drafts
  }
  mailbox Junk {
    special_use = \Junk
  }
  mailbox Sent {
    special_use = \Sent
  }
  mailbox "Sent Messages" {
    special_use = \Sent
  }
  mailbox Trash {
    special_use = \Trash
  }
  prefix =
}
passdb {
  args = /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext
  driver = sql
}
protocols = imap pop3 imap pop3
service auth {
  unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth {
    mode = 0666
  }
  unix_listener auth-userdb {
    group = postfix
    mode = 0666
    user = postfix
  }
}
ssl_cert = </etc/dovecot/dovecot.pem
ssl_key = </etc/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem
userdb {
  args = /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext
  driver = sql
}

 

Thanks, I will try. Do I need to reset the dovecot configuration to the "fresh apt-get install dovecot" state first?

 

....extra post so that I am allowed to post something with urls...

 

Thanks that worked.

For other people having to deal with this problem, I performed the following steps. This assumes you are on Debian Wheezy.

1. Make sure you are root (sudo su)
   
2. Backup dovecot config
   Code:

   config cp -R /etc/dovecot /root/dovecot-backup

3. Delete dovecot config
   Code:

   rm -R /etc/dovecot

4. Restore vanilla config
   Code:

   cp -R /usr/share/dovecot/ /etc/dovecot 

5. Then walk through the guide from front to back to see if any configuration is still up to date with what the guide assumes.
6. Execute ispconfig_update.sh, it should be on your path. Follow the update instructions . The updater takes care of your backups.
   
7. If everything works you can delete your dovecot backup
   Code:

   rm -R /root/dovecot-backup

For reference, my dovecot config now reads:

Code:

$ dovecot -n
# 2.1.7: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# OS: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 x86_64 Debian 7.11
auth_mechanisms = plain login
disable_plaintext_auth = no
listen = *,[::]
log_timestamp = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S "
mail_privileged_group = vmail
passdb {
  args = /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf
  driver = sql
}
plugin {
  quota = dict:user::file:/var/vmail/%d/%n/.quotausage
  sieve = /var/vmail/%d/%n/.sieve
}
protocols = imap pop3
service auth {
  unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth {
  group = postfix
  mode = 0660
  user = postfix
  }
  unix_listener auth-userdb {
  group = vmail
  mode = 0600
  user = vmail
  }
  user = root
}
service imap-login {
  client_limit = 1000
  process_limit = 500
}
ssl_cert = </etc/postfix/smtpd.cert
ssl_key = </etc/postfix/smtpd.key
ssl_protocols = !SSLv2 !SSLv3
userdb {
  args = /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf
  driver = sql
}
protocol imap {
  mail_plugins = quota imap_quota
}
protocol pop3 {
  mail_plugins = quota
  pop3_uidl_format = %08Xu%08Xv
}
protocol lda {
  mail_plugins = sieve quota
}