Email duplication problem

Discussion in 'Installation/Configuration' started by sbbobd, Jan 25, 2009.

  1. sbbobd

    sbbobd New Member

    Hi, I've been a happy user of ISPConfig for several years. (minor chord plays in background :) I'm using a Debian Sarge 3.1 installation setup via the appropriate 'perfect Debian setup'.

    Recently a new problem with email started showing up. This problem manifests itself as duplicate emails in the users' inbox along with a lengthy wait as the users' email client app does its work. That is, the problematic emails are reread into the client's inbox each time the client logs into the mail server to check the mail.

    The problem appears to be related to binary attachments, particularly ones that are >5Mb in size. The clients with these problems are setup to delete emails from the server as they are read. Thus, I can look at their inbox with a text editor or via 'mail -f /var/mail/webxx_username' and verify that the problematic emails (and subsequent emails in the inbox) are not getting deleted after they are read. After I manually delete the emails from their inbox, the duplication stops.

    Perusing the boards here at HowtoForge leads me to believe it could be a file locking problem, though, like I said, I've been a happy user for years and this problem just started to show up and only on certail email accounts. My thinking on the locking issue is that the mechanism whereby the message is deleted from the client's inbox fails due to a locking problem, therefore the message doesn't actually get deleted.

    My current effort to resolve this issue included enabling/disabled the 'MailScan' option in ISPConfig to stimulate a rewrite of the mail config files in hopes that that is the problem. This did not work.

    How would I go about testing the locking mechanism to verify that it is or is not working correctly?

    Any help would be greatly appreciated...
     
  2. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    Thats a common problem with mail systems that use mbox format as mail storge. The best solution for this is to switch to the newer maildir format.
     
  3. sbbobd

    sbbobd New Member

    Upgrade from mbox to maildir

    Okay, so I need to install courier-imap, courier-imap-ssl, courier-pop and courier-pop-ssl via apt-get.

    Correct?

    Then I simply check the 'Maildir' box in the ISPConfig...
     
  4. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    Yes, thats correct. In case there are old mails stored in mbox format that have not been fetcehd yet by your customers, you will have to convert them to maildir format. This works e.g. with the command mb2md, you will find several threads about that in the forum incl. some helper scripts to automate the conversion.
     
  5. sbbobd

    sbbobd New Member

    mbox and Maildir mutually exclusive?

    Thanks a bunch for the emails on this thread, till.

    I've now proven that Maildir works on a new install of ISPConfig.

    Now I'm faced with updating a live server to switch from mbox to Maildir.

    After I install courier-imap, courier-imap-ssl, courier-pop and courier-pop-ssl, will the mbox config work or do I have to switch to Maildir (in ISPConfig) to get mail up and running again. That is, are mbox and Maildir mutually exclusive?

    Can I switch back and forth between mbox and Maildir without doing install/uninstall of packages?

    Thanks sooo much,
    sbbobd
     
  6. falko

    falko Super Moderator Howtoforge Staff

    Yes.

    Yes.

    No.
     
  7. sbbobd

    sbbobd New Member

    How to return to mbox - in case of errors running Maildir

    If, due to some unforeseen consequence, the switch to Maildir fails, how do I return to mbox?

    Do I rerun the Postfix/POP3/IMAP install steps? Or, is their a quicker way?

    Thanks,
    sbbobd
     
  8. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    In that case you will have to install the old imap and pop3 daemon again.
     
  9. sbbobd

    sbbobd New Member

    the old pop and imap daemons

    The install of postfix is

    apt-get install postfix postfix-tls libsasl2 sasl2-bin libsasl2-modules ipopd-ssl uw-imapd-ssl

    Do I only need to reinstall ipopd-ssl and uw-imapd-ssl?

    Thanks,
    sbbobd
     
  10. falko

    falko Super Moderator Howtoforge Staff

    Yes, that's right.
     

Share This Page