Dovecot pop3 login error

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21

With your pro license you can open a support ticket and get direct support with staff.
There have been some instances that a data center installed OS created unexpected problems and they have specific experience with that and everything related to their software.

If you post the results back here it can be helpful to others.

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22

yeah, i sent a PM about it. will update further.

thanks for the assist

23

That’s unusual. So unusual that I’ve literally never seen it, and I’ve seen just about everything.

Do you have plenty of memory? Check the kernel log (dmesg) for OOM killer messages.

I’m not sure what else would cause dovecot processes to die unexpectedly. I don’t think any configuration error would cause it, as configuration is parsed on start, if it were invalid, it would just log an error and exit.

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24

checked the kern.log and didn’t see anything, but I am not an expert. the box has 64gb

25

OK, definitely not memory.

26

@jimr1 mentioned this earlier.

Can you get a good dovecot config and compare it to yours?

27

or do like they did - uninstalling dovecot and deleting/etc/dovecot and reinstalling?

28

There are modifications that virtualmin does such as SASL integration (I think) and other stuff that would get lost.

I have Ubuntu 22.04 (need to double check) if there is no security keys etc… on it I can maybe copy the files needed.

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29

After the Virtualmin Install and setup process after logging in, did you run the Re-Check Configuration?

Also, did you go through the whole setup wizard? Did you specify whether passwords are plain or hashed?

30

yes. and the passwords are hashed

31

Does everything checkout ok when you re-check configuration?

Under Virtualmin Tab → System Settings → Re-Check Configuration

32

no problems, says it’s ready

33

Cool,

Is this a new installation of Virtualmin? Is this only happening to the migrating sites?

Does this also happens to newly created Virtualservers?

Are you hosting the DNS records for these domains?
Do they have an DNS A record for mail.domain.tld

Added note: Does restarting dovecot service make any difference?

34

yes
no - fresh site does same

yes

yes

not at all

35

What version of dovecot is installed on your ubuntu 22.04 server?

36

Version 2.3.16

37

Ok,

Look in your Webmin Tab for Servers → Dovecot IMAP/POP3 Server

Click on edit config files:
In drop down locate /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-auth.conf
Make sure that these lines below are the only lines that do not have a # in front of them
You should only have three settings in this file, everything else should be off.

disable_plaintext_auth = no
auth_mechanisms = plain
!include auth-system.conf.ext
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38

ok, it showed the rest and this was

auth_mechanisms = plain login

switched to auth_mechanisms = plain

neither worked – same issue. also ran the virtualmin re-check and passed

39

In the same drop down locate /etc/dovecot/conf.d/auth-system.conf.ext

Make sure the settings are pointing to pam as shown below.

passdb {
  driver = pam
  # [session=yes] [setcred=yes] [failure_show_msg=yes] [max_requests=<n>]
  # [cache_key=<key>] [<service name>]
  #args = dovecot
}

userdb {
  # <doc/wiki/AuthDatabase.Passwd.txt>
  driver = passwd
  # [blocking=no]
  #args = 

  # Override fields from passwd
  #override_fields = home=/home/virtual/%u
}

If all this is good as it should, I would also check as to how you have your settings on the email client setup.

one approach would be

IMAP server:  mail.domain.tld  Port: 993 with SSL/TLS
SMTP server:  mail.domain.tld  Port: 587 with STARTTLS

Both settings with authenticate password.

40

those settings are all what we have - including multiple mail clients