Roundcubemail cannot connect to storage server anymore

phonon112358 · May 17, 2017, 11:30pm

Hi,

I cannot login to roundcubemail for two days…
The day before that everything worked still fine… (perhaps a update - I don’t know anymore for sure…). I didn’t change any configuration files however…

Now, every time I try to login, roundcubemail says “Connection to storage server failed”. In the /var/log/roundcubemail/error.log, I found IMAP Error: Login failed for aaron@example.com from 192.168.42.2. Could not connect to localhost:143: Verbindungsaufbau abgelehnt in /usr/share/roundcubemail/program/lib/Roundcube/rcube_imap.php on line 197 (POST /webmail/?_task=login?_task=login&_action=login) (where I replaced my domain name by example.com… and sorry that it is german…)

I have already reinstalled roundcubemail, nethserver-roundcubemail and dovecot… but without any success regarding the error…

The line mentioned in the log is throws an if roundcubemail cannot connect to dovecot/imap…

does anyone have an idea? or do you need more information?

btw, I disabled selinux already for another reason (this has nothing to do with the error however - I have only read somewhere that the error could come also from selinux…)

m.traeumner · May 18, 2017, 6:55am

Hi Aaron,
I found two things at Roundcube Forum,

a problem with upper case in the name
a missing entry at the host file

I hope it will help you

For our english speaking people

is

Connection refused

giacomo · May 18, 2017, 8:09am

Also check your IMAP server is working correctly:

systemctl status dovecot

phonon112358 · May 18, 2017, 11:31am

Thank you for your answers…! [quote=“m.traeumner, post:2, topic:6845”]
I found two things at Roundcube Forum,

a problem with upper case in the name
a missing entry at the host file
[/quote]
All my users are lowercase… hence that cannot be the problem…
I also checked the /etc/hosts file…The defining line of 127.0.0.1 is 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain
Looks as usual, or?

[quote=“giacomo, post:3, topic:6845”]
systemctl status dovecot
[/quote]~ ]# systemctl status dovecot dovecot.service - Dovecot IMAP/POP3 email server Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/dovecot.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled) Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/dovecot.service.d limits.conf Active: active (running) since Wed 2017-05-17 18:33:49 CEST; 18h ago Main PID: 31167 (dovecot) CGroup: /system.slice/dovecot.service 31167 /usr/sbin/dovecot -F 31171 dovecot/anvil 31172 dovecot/log
hence, dovecot seems to be running correctly…

Any other suggestions?

filippo_carletti · May 18, 2017, 11:39am

You could check connection to port 143 with:

nc -v localhost 143

Example output:

Ncat: Version 6.40 ( http://nmap.org/ncat )
Ncat: Connected to 127.0.0.1:143.
* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE IDLE STARTTLS AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=LOGIN AUTH=GSSAPI] Dovecot ready

phonon112358 · May 18, 2017, 11:54am

[quote=“filippo_carletti, post:5, topic:6845”]
nc -v localhost 143
[/quote]~ ]# nc -v localhost 143 Ncat: Version 6.40 ( http://nmap.org/ncat ) Ncat: Connection refused.
That is obviously the problem…!!! Thank you!!
But how to fix it?

filippo_carletti · May 18, 2017, 11:58am

Let’s check if dovecot/imap is listening on port 143 with:
fuser -vn tcp 143

Example output:

            USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
143/tcp:    vmail      1206 F.... imap
            vmail      1217 F.... imap

Then dovecot config:

config show dovecot | grep Port
    TCPPorts=110,143,4190,993,995

Check /var/log/imap content, even after restarting dovecot.

phonon112358 · May 18, 2017, 1:52pm

This gives me no output at all…! (even no error message)

this returns exactly the same ports as you have written… [quote=“filippo_carletti, post:7, topic:6845”]
Check /var/log/imap content, even after restarting dovecot
[/quote]

The last entry in this log file is from 15.05… there I logged in to roundcubemail the last time successfully… even no new entries when restarting dovecot service…

filippo_carletti · May 18, 2017, 2:00pm

I think that dovecot is not running.
I can say that dovecot is stable as a rock, it never crashed in any of the hundreds of systems I administer, so I don’t have experience on debugging it.

Check this:

lsof -Pp $(cat /var/run/dovecot/master.pid ) | grep LIST
dovecot 25287 root   16u     IPv4           21617330      0t0       TCP *:4190 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   17u     IPv6           21617331      0t0       TCP *:4190 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   18u     IPv4           21617332      0t0       TCP *:2000 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   19u     IPv6           21617333      0t0       TCP *:2000 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   29u     IPv4           21617358      0t0       TCP *:110 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   30u     IPv6           21617359      0t0       TCP *:110 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   31u     IPv4           21617360      0t0       TCP *:995 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   32u     IPv6           21617361      0t0       TCP *:995 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   44u     IPv4           21617400      0t0       TCP *:143 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   45u     IPv6           21617401      0t0       TCP *:143 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   46u     IPv4           21617402      0t0       TCP *:993 (LISTEN)
dovecot 25287 root   47u     IPv6           21617403      0t0       TCP *:993 (LISTEN)

I think you should collect some information and search/ask on the dovecot mailing list.
Dovecot wiki has a troubleshooting section:
https://wiki2.dovecot.org/

phonon112358 · May 18, 2017, 2:16pm

this outputs only ~ ]# lsof -Pp $(cat /var/run/dovecot/master.pid ) | grep LIST dovecot 18438 root 16u IPv4 2462446 0t0 TCP *:4190 (LISTEN) dovecot 18438 root 17u IPv6 2462447 0t0 TCP *:4190 (LISTEN)

None of the other ports…!!
OK, I will try it on one of the dovecot mailing lists…
Nonetheless, thank you all very much!!!

filippo_carletti · May 18, 2017, 2:24pm

This means that dovecot is acting only as a sieve server. You’re missing bot pop3(s) and imap(s). Ports 110 995 143 993.
Googling a bit, I found that you can disable protocols in dovecot.conf.
Here’s mine:

grep protocols /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf 
# 20protocols -- configure access to mailboxes
protocols = imap lmtp sieve pop3

I see that imap is hardcoded, so I can’t imagine how you could have disabled it.

phonon112358 · May 18, 2017, 2:50pm

my output ~ ]# grep protocols /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf # 20protocols -- configure access to mailboxes protocols = imap lmtp sieve
only pop3 is missing…

Furthermore, I found in the /var/log/maillog many connections via dovecot but not from me…!! For example, May 18 16:35:02 assa dovecot: lmtp(23443): Disconnect from local: Successful quit
It seems that emails from/to my root account which are automatically sent by the server can be delivered by dovecot…
I will test if I can login via thunderbird… I also don’t guess that it works but…

phonon112358 · May 18, 2017, 3:13pm

I solved the problem!!!
I had somehow disabled the IMAP protocol via the server manager… it is under configuration -> email -> mailboxes -> Mailbox access protocols

Hence it was my own fault…
Now, roundcubemail is working again…!!

Again thank you all for your help…!

phonon112358 · May 18, 2017, 3:48pm

Perhaps, one could add it in the inline help or/and in the admin manual that disabling IMAP there causes that roundcubemail doesn’t work anymore…! or what do you think?

filippo_carletti · May 18, 2017, 5:00pm

What do you think about changing the word “IMAP” with “IMAP/Webmail”?

phonon112358 · May 18, 2017, 5:47pm

Yes, I guess that would be great…!