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ubuntu 11.10 32bit. Setup a dovecot imap server. Using Thunderbird on a different ubuntu machine (64bit) to access imap server. Everything else is fine, except I can not compact the deleted email in inbox, which is stored at /var/mail/username. Checking mail.log and I see this error message:

Apr  3 00:10:11 autumn dovecot: imap(username): Error: file_dotlock_create(/var/mail/username) failed: Permission denied (euid=1000(username) egid=1000(username) missing +w perm: /var/mail, euid is not dir owner) (set mail_privileged_group=mail)

what is wrong with the permission? Here are the permissions for the relevant files:

$ ls -ld /var/mail
drwxrwsr-x 2 mail mail 4096 2012-04-02 23:36 /var/mail

$ ls -l /var/mail/username
-rw------- 1 username mail 417 2012-04-02 23:36 /var/mail/username

Anyone knows what's going on here?

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    I went into /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf, added the group mail to the line "mail_privileged_group = ", stop dovecot, and then start dovecot. It works now. Although I wish this was documented somewhere.
    – G. He
    Apr 3, 2012 at 11:56
  • It is documented here. Please convert your comment to an answer and accept it so that this question is not left hanging without an answer.
    – Celada
    Apr 4, 2012 at 16:26

2 Answers 2

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I went into /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf, added the group mail to the line "mail_privileged_group = ", stop dovecot, and then start dovecot. It works now.

As pointed out by Celada, it is documented here.

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I will write as to correct it on steps. I test it Debian 8 and ubuntu server 14.04.

  1. sudo nano /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
  2. change the parameter #mail_privileged_group to mail_privileged_group = mail
  3. Ctrlo
  4. Ctrlx
  5. sudo service dovecot restart
  6. Profit!
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    This answer should be edited to be completely in English.
    – Nattgew
    Jan 7, 2016 at 2:15
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    This is the same as this older answer. Also, please use text to include textual information – not images.
    – David Foerster
    Jan 7, 2016 at 11:52

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