My mail server suddenly stopped working

[Wouter_Hamelink]

My mail server suddenly stopped working. I haven’t changed anything. What could be the cause?

 

[Wouter_Hamelink]

Some more info:

Dec 04 14:42:49 da.xxxxx dovecot[1308458]: doveconf: Fatal: Error in configuration file /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf line 37: location: Unknown setting: location (namespace_location or namespace_inbox_location not found either>Dec 04 14:42:49 da.weblance.nl systemd[1]: dovecot.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=89/n/a

 

[zEitEr]

What could be the cause?

Just an idea: Automated updates in directadmin caused updates of dovecot from 2.3 to 2.4

 

[Wouter_Hamelink]

Just an idea: Automated updates in directadmin caused updates of dovecot from 2.3 to 2.4

yes

 

[zEitEr]

configs for dovecot 2.3 are not compatible with dovecot 2.4

 

[Wouter_Hamelink]

But how do i fix it?

 

[zEitEr]

Directadmin does use the file /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf. It might mean you have a custom installation. You will need to update the file on your own, or hire somebody to fix it for you.

 

[Wouter_Hamelink]

Well, I haven’t changed anything in the config myself, so I find it strange that this file is missing or behaving differently. It could also be that DirectAdmin updated something and didn’t handle it properly, which might explain the issue. Since I don’t have a custom setup, I’d expect the defaults to be consistent.

 

[zEitEr]

Whenever I upgrade dovecot for my customers, I do update config files as well.
You might open a ticket with DirectAdmin support, probably they will fix it for you for free.

And once again Dovecot 2.3 does not use the file:

[root@server ~]# dovecot --version
2.3.21 (47349e2482)
[root@server ~]# cat /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
cat: /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf: No such file or directory
[root@server ~]#

 

[Wouter_Hamelink]

Whenever I upgrade dovecot for my customers, I do update config files as well.
You might open a ticket with DirectAdmin support, probably they will fix it for you for free.

And once again Dovecot 2.3 does not use the file:

[root@server ~]# dovecot --version
2.3.21 (47349e2482)
[root@server ~]# cat /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
cat: /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf: No such file or directory
[root@server ~]#

root@da:~# dovecot --version
2.4.1-4 (7d8c0e5759)
root@da:~#

 

[zEitEr]

Neither dovecot 2.3 nor dovecot 2.4 use the file:

[root@server ~]# cat /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
cat: /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf: No such file or directory
[root@server ~]# dovecot --version
2.4.2 (0962ed2104)
[root@server ~]#

So you have a custom file installed for Dovecot 2.3, which is not compatible with Dovecot 2.4. If you don't need the file, you can simply remove it.

I don't guarantee anything when you do it on your own.

 

[Wouter_Hamelink]

I haven’t installed any custom files myself, so it’s strange to me that this is being flagged as incompatible. It seems more likely that DirectAdmin updated something and didn’t handle the migration properly. Since I haven’t made any manual changes, I’d expect the defaults to work out of the box.

 

[zEitEr]

Since I haven’t made any manual changes, I’d expect the defaults to work out of the box.

Open a ticket with directadmin support then, I am another server owner and admin. I help here on the forums and offer a commercial support for Directadmin servers.

 

[toml]

How did you install dovecot in the first place? Perhaps you originally installed it via yum/dnf/apt/etc and it installed the "default" conf.d directory containing the 10-mail.conf file. Mine looks like this:
[root@main dovecot]# dovecot --version
2.4.2 (0962ed2104)
[root@main dovecot]# ls /etc/dovecot/conf.d
90-quota.conf 90-sieve.conf 95-sni.conf

You might want to look at https://doc.dovecot.org/main/installation/upgrade/2.3-to-2.4.html to see what config changes don't work with 2.4.