Freebsd – Dovecot user lookup fails when using username@domain format

dovecotemailfreebsdpostfix

I have Dovecot v2.0.11 installed on a FreeBSD server and the user lookups for incoming email addresses are failing, but lookups for system users is successful.

Dovecot is setup to use system users, so my dovecot.conf has

 userdb {
  driver = passwd
}

and

passdb {
  driver = passwd
}

I have auth debug enabled.

For example, I have a user called webmaster, and using doveadm user for "webmaster" works as follows:

#doveadm user webmaster
userdb: webmaster
  system_groups_user: webmaster
  uid       : 1020
  gid       : 1020
  home      : /home/webmaster

However using doveadm user to lookup webmaster@myregisteredname.com fails as follows:

# doveadm user webmaster@myregisteredname.com
userdb lookup: user webmaster@myregisteredname.com doesn't exist

This is resulting in incoming mail for webmaster@myregisteredname.com to bounce with an "unknown user" error.

Here's the failure logged in /var/log/maillog:

Apr 16 20:13:35 www dovecot: auth: passwd(webmaster@myregisteredname.com): unknown user

Here's the failure logged in /var/log/debug.log:

Apr 16 20:13:35 www dovecot: auth: Debug: master in: USER       1       webmaster@myregisteredname.com  service=doveadm
Apr 16 20:13:35 www dovecot: auth: Debug: passwd(webmaster@myregisteredname.com): lookup
Apr 16 20:13:35 www dovecot: auth: Debug: master out: NOTFOUND  1

The users and their home directories were imported from another server and the users were setup using the vipw tool. I'm sure there's someting I missed on the import that's not "linking" the system user with the dovecot lookup.

Any ideas about what that something may be?

EDIT:
Using BillThor's advice, I updated dovecot.conf as follows:

#doveconf -n passdb userdb
passdb {
  args = username_format=%n
  driver = passwd
}
userdb {
  args = username_format=%n
  driver = passwd
}

However, now, doveadm user fails in a different fashion:

#doveadm user webmaster@pantronx.com
doveadm(root): Error: userdb lookup(webmaster@myregisteredname.com): Disconnected unexpectedly
doveadm(root): Fatal: userdb lookup failed for webmaster@myregisteredname.com

And, it no longer works for users without a domain:

#doveadm user webmaster
doveadm(root): Error: userdb lookup(webmaster): Disconnected unexpectedly
doveadm(root): Fatal: userdb lookup failed for webmaster

When I get the above messages, the following is in /var/log/maillog:

Apr 17 17:30:02 www dovecot: auth: Fatal: passdb passwd: Unknown setting: username_format=%u
Apr 17 17:30:02 www dovecot: master: Error: service(auth): command startup failed, throttling

Best Answer

Userids in dovecot using passdb don't include the domain. The userid the user should use is the local part, not the full email address.

The checks that are passing and failing are working as expected. Setting auth_username_format=%n before the password db definition does work. The domain is not validated though.

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