doveconf: Fatal: Error in configuration file - after upgrade last night to v100.0.2

[outofcontrol]

This morning our server refuses to start Dovecot and Exim showing in Server Status that Exim is in pending state, IMAP (2.3), lmtp and POP (2.3) are down. Attempting to restart Exim appears successful, but Server Status still shows pending.

When attempting to restart IMAP Service we get these errors:

Reference found where even-sized list expected at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/ServiceManager/Base.pm line 972. Waiting for “dovecot” to start ………Waiting for authProg,authdaemond,imapd,pop3,couriertls,couriertcpd,imap-login,pop3-login,dovecot/lmtp,dovecot,dovecot-auth,dovecot-wrap to shutdown ... not running. ………failed.

Cpanel::Exception::Services::StartError Service Status
undefined status from Cpanel::ServiceManager::Services::Dovecot

Service Error
(XID njyw8p) The “dovecot” service failed to start.

Startup Log
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com systemd[1]: Started Dovecot Imap Server.
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com dovecot[23211]: doveconf: Warning: NOTE: You can get a new clean config file with: doveconf -Pn > dovecot-new.conf
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com dovecot[23211]: doveconf: Warning: Obsolete setting in /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf:94: ssl_protocols has been replaced by ssl_min_protocol
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com dovecot[23211]: doveconf: Error: Could not find a minimum ssl_min_protocol setting from ssl_protocols = !SSLv2 !SSLv3: Unrecognized protocol 'SSLv2'
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com dovecot[23211]: doveconf: Fatal: Error in configuration file /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 392: Time interval '30' is missing units (add e.g. 's' for seconds)
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com systemd[1]: dovecot.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=89/n/a
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com systemd[1]: Unit dovecot.service entered failed state.
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com systemd[1]: dovecot.service failed.

Log Messages
Nov 9 07:42:56 ourservercom dovecot: doveconf: Fatal: Error in configuration file /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 392: Time interval '30' is missing units (add e.g. 's' for seconds)
Nov 9 07:42:56 ourservercom dovecot: doveconf: Error: Could not find a minimum ssl_min_protocol setting from ssl_protocols = !SSLv2 !SSLv3: Unrecognized protocol 'SSLv2'

Comparing the Dovecot to a slightly older cpanel server reveals the Dovecot config files are very different. We have tried resaving the IMAP configuration from cpanel and have tried editing the config file manually to resolve the issues, with no progress made.

Is it possible the upgrade to v100.0.2 of cpanel was not successful?

---
Edit to add Exim details. After a lengthy delay, Exim finally sends out a failed message with this:

TCP Transaction Log: 
<< 220-our.server.com ESMTP Exim 4.94.2 #2 Tue, 09 Nov 2021 07:52:58 -0800 
<< 220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited, 
<< 220 and/or bulk e-mail.
>> EHLO localhost
<< 250-our.server.com Hello localhost [127.0.0.1]
<< 250-SIZE 52428800
<< 250-8BITMIME
<< 250-PIPELINING
<< 250-PIPE_CONNECT
<< 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
<< 250-STARTTLS
<< 250 HELP
>> AUTH PLAIN <token-removed>
<< 435 Unable to authenticate at present
exim: ** [435 Unable to authenticate at present != 2]
: Died

Any suggested course of action?

 

[andrew.n]

Looks like this is the primary issue:

Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com dovecot[23211]: doveconf: Error: Could not find a minimum ssl_min_protocol setting from ssl_protocols = !SSLv2 !SSLv3: Unrecognized protocol 'SSLv2'
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com dovecot[23211]: doveconf: Fatal: Error in configuration file /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 392: Time interval '30' is missing units (add e.g. 's' for seconds)
Nov 09 07:42:56 our.server.com systemd[1]: dovecot.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=89/n/a

Instead of editing the file manually can you do this from WHM under Mailserver configuration? and apply the settings from there.

 

[cPanelAnthony]

Thanks for your assist, Andrew!

 

[Joel Williams]

I just had the same error too. On closer inspection, it looks like /scripts/builddovecotconf is generating a config from the /var/cpanel/templates/dovecot2.2/ templates rather than 2.3, so the resulting configuration was invalid for dovecot.

I've restored dovecot.conf from backup, but really hope that this won't happen again the next time the configuration is rebuilt!

 

[cPanelAnthony]

I just had the same error too. On closer inspection, it looks like /scripts/builddovecotconf is generating a config from the /var/cpanel/templates/dovecot2.2/ templates rather than 2.3, so the resulting configuration was invalid for dovecot.

I've restored dovecot.conf from backup, but really hope that this won't happen again the next time the configuration is rebuilt!

Can you confirm which operating system and cPanel version this is on?

 

[Joel Williams]

Can you confirm which operating system and cPanel version this is on?

Thanks cPanelAnthony! It is running CentOS v7.9.2009 virtuozzo, v100.0.3. I also opened support request #94384356.

Your colleague in cPanel support has identified the root cause - for some reason /var/cpanel/conf/dovecot/main and /var/cpanel/conf/dovecot/main.cache contained this attribute:

_use_target_version: '2.2'


This should be changed to 2.3, or perhaps removed entirely. Rebuilding the config will then use the correct templates. It's not at all clear why this suddenly became a problem today though, since the main file hadn't been changed for many years.

 

[cPanelAnthony]

Thank you for this update! It's very useful to have this information.