Friday, 7 May 2010

Ubuntu server upgrade to 10.04 LTS - dovecot configuration

Just fairly painlessly upgraded our file/web/mail/everything else server to Ubuntu 10.04 (wouldn't normally bother or would do a clean new install, but it was a pretty new clean installation of 9.10 anyway and 10.04 is one of the LTS versions). The only failure that I've noticed so far is that dovecot did not start because of errors in the old config file /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf so in case anyone else comes across it

1) Dovecot will use SSL by default, so if you don't have the certificates and that set up, it will tell you so and die. The old config file had a commented out default setting in the SSL settings section (around line 100):
# disable_ssl=no
but uncommenting and setting this to yes doesn't work - I had instead to insert
ssl = no

2) The new version has changed the handling of the sieve routines (whatever they are) making the MANAGESIEVE section of the same file (around line 680) redundant, and specifically the settings
sieve=~/.dovecot.sieve
and
sieve_storage=~/sieve
cause an error - just comment them out. Congratulations, you now have (well, I now have) a slightly crufty dovecot.conf that will actually let the thing start, and you can read all the viagra spam that has been waiting while you did the system upgrade.

Usual caveats apply, especially the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" ones about taking advice from people who don't really know what they're doing.

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