server dovecot(pam_unix)[3446]: check pass; user unknown

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1

Hi Joe,

I get hundreds of these lines in my logfile /var/log/messages.

Aug 26 23:19:54 server dovecot(pam_unix)[[8763]]: check pass; user unknown
Aug 26 23:19:54 server dovecot(pam_unix)[[8763]]: authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost=
Aug 26 23:27:09 server dovecot(pam_unix)[[8796]]: check pass; user unknown
Aug 26 23:27:10 server dovecot(pam_unix)[[8796]]: authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost=
Aug 26 23:34:22 server dovecot(pam_unix)[[8881]]: check pass; user unknown
Aug 26 23:34:22 server dovecot(pam_unix)[[8881]]: authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost=

The past 11 hours I got 174 of these lines.

Any idea?

Regards,
Leif

2

Hey Leif,

No idea. Does mail pickup actually work OK?

You might have a user that has configured querying of the server, but never got the username and password setup. I dunno why it would keep querying with no user data after being denied once, but maybe there’s something buggy out there doing so.

3

Hi Joe,

Yes mail are picked up ok to all users. I looked in the log file /var/log/messages just now and I hade about 70 of these linse starting Sep 5 10:21:47 up to now.

I’ll check your suggestion about “You might have a user that has configured querying…”.

Regards,
Leif