IMAP Dovecot unknown namespace creating root folders

Maspry

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Oct 29, 2013
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Hi, I hope someone can point me in the right direction here. I am migrating a mailbox from a non cPanel server, and the mailboxes have folders which seem to be at the same level as the Inbox. The users access these mailboxes using IMAP.

I have created the new mailbox within cPanel however when I try to create a 'top level' folder in Outlook I receive the error 'Cannot create the folder: Unknown namespace' (Note I also tried this with the windows mail client to ensure it was not client side)

I know that I can get round this by setting the root folder path on the client to 'Inbox' and therefore the folders would be created as sub-folders of Inbox, and this would not be visible to the user, but I was hoping to migrate without touching the clients.

The server configuration is Exim > Dovecot 1.2.17 > Maildir with the standard cPanel install settings

Should the mail server report the default root folder path automatically, or create a default top level namespace for each user or could I have just gone wrong and missed something.

Many thanks for any help

Maspry
 

Maspry

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Oct 29, 2013
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Hi all,
I believe I have worked this out. There is an entry in dovecot.conf for the private namespace which sets the prefix required to access the namespace as follows

prefix = INBOX.


I commented this out and restarted dovecot.

I know that I need to make this change in the template for dovecot as the direct edit of dovecot.conf will be overwritten when dovecot is updated. I am also checking if there are any implications in doing this.

Maspry
 

Maspry

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Oct 29, 2013
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Thanks Michael,

For info, I now believe that this is a cPanel issue not a Dovecot issue which I was initially leaning towards. cPanel re-writes dovecot.conf from a template, and what it calls the datastore. From what I have learnt so far it looks like cPanel seems to have lost the mechanism to permit you to change the 'prefix' value in the datastore which I believe should be located at /var/cpanel/conf/dovecot/main, as it no longer exists. The template /var/cpanel/templates/dovecot1.2/main.default exists and modifies the default dovecot.conf and sets it with 'prefix = INBOX.' which I believe is not a default dovecot.conf value. I was able to get around this by creating a copy of the main.deafult file which needs to be called main.local in the same directory and commenting out line 362 as such '#prefix = [% namespace_private.prefix %]'

I have since seen 2 other similar posts on this issue, one from a while ago and the response seems to be that newer clients should be able to work the default namespaces out (sorry I cannot reference them at the moment). I can say that this issue persists with the current Widows Live Mail application and with multiple versions of Outlook (up to 2007 so far). The alternative response was to post as a new feature request. Since it is cPanel that seems to be modifying the default behavior of the .conf file I am not sure this should be a feature request.

My initial thoughts only and no offence intended, I will post more info to help out if I find out more info.

Many Thanks

Marcus
 

cPanelMichael

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Apr 11, 2011
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Please feel free to submit a bug report so we can take a closer look:

Submit A Bug Report

You can post the ticket number here so we can update this thread with the outcome.

Thank you.
 

lorio

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Isn't that changed to allow an easy switch to courier back and forth?

There seemed to be a bug in thunderbird 24.0, which prevent the creation of the folders, when trying to sent from an IMAP account.
Since Maspry talked about Outlook we can rule that one out.

I think there is a difference between 11.38.X and 11.40.X in behaviour.
I gues Maspry is using 11.38.X . He should try 11.40.X. and tell if the problem is gone.

Haven't checked the confs for comparism.
 

Maspry

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Oct 29, 2013
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Thx Michael,

If it's needed I will. Would still like to look at it further.

Lorio, I seem to recall a post mentioning easy switching between courier an dovecot. But I think there should be a data store for both.

It may be that I need to go to 11.40.X I can't recall what level the machine is at but will check next time I'm on and report back.

Cheers

Maspry
 

Maspry

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Oct 29, 2013
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For info WHM is at 11.38, don't want to jump right now and go to 11.40 without reviewing the changes. Will post back once I have upgraded.

Thanks