Subject: Stability improvement request in the mail server
From: Sean Colins - Core Professional Services <email@hidden>
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:30:36 -0800
Delivered-to: email@hidden
Delivered-to: email@hidden
Dear list, and Apple monitors,
If anyone in the Mail Server group at Apple is listening, I will be
able to handle the work around to this problem for now, but every
client I have is talking about bringing in another solution to handle
their mail if this isn't fixed in Tiger Server. Please give me an
indication if possible that this bug has been properly logged and will
be fixed! Thanks.
I have been specializing in Apple's OS X Server mail implementation now
for several years through all the changes, and have been generally
happy with the results. What I have not been particularly happy about
is a certain lack of stability with 10.3 mail server under certain
circumstances. Specific problems are apparent with database corruption,
and a frequent need for repair of the mail database, resulting in the
redelivery of any mail that was stored on the server as new messages. I
am listing the fix for the repair of the mail database here, because it
is openly available on the Apple Support site, and because it is
somewhat difficult to locate, but also to point attention to a problem
that affects Cyrus in Apple's implementation of it's Mail server, but
somehow seems less prevalent in the open source Cyrus community, based
on my observations of that community.
The problem seems to occur because Cyrus looses the permission to write
to its own log files. I have seen this happen on servers providing mail
to over a thousand accounts, and seen it affect servers providing mail
to only a couple of dozen accounts, so the number of accounts is not
the problem. But mail volume may be. Another possibility is log volume
and the frequency of write outs to the log files. I am uncertain.
I have spoken with Apple support about this, and have found that they
are aware of the problem, but had not at the time of my last
communication with them been able to replicate the problem in their
labs. That was in December, so I'm hopeful that has changed and a fix
is forthcoming.
I thought I had found a very solid fix to the problem which involved
editing the imapd.conf file in /etc, but a client just had the same
failure occur after I had applied what I thought would be a fix, so
clearly that didn't do it. (I simply altered the logging behavior.)
Here is the fix for the database and for mailman for all who need it:
There is no fix for the redelivery of mail on the server as new.
How to Fix the Mail Database on OS X Mail Server
1. Stop the cyrus (IMAP/POP) server.
2. Execute these commands in Terminal:
$ su root$ mv /var/imap /var/imap.old
$ /usr/bin/cyrus/tools/mkimap
$ chown -R cyrus:mail /var/imap
$ sudo -u cyrus /usr/bin/cyrus/bin/reconstruct -i
3. Restart the cyrus (IMAP/POP) server, and verify that mail is working.
4. If a mailbox is missing for a particular user account, delete the
account from the mail application at the client computer, quit the mail
application, then reconfigure it (alternatively you could configure a
mail client that has not been used with this account before)
If Using MailMan, go through these additional steps.
Executing this command should bring the permissions back to the
correct state and re-enable your mailing lists:
sudo /usr/share/mailman/bin/check_perms -f
Sean Colins
Core Professional Services
email@hidden
ACHDS 10.3
ACTC 10.3, and 10.2
