dovecot config overrides not working #4461

tilllt · 2025-04-30T11:27:52Z

tilllt
Apr 30, 2025

i am running: ghcr.io/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver:latest

I have an inline compose compose config to override / extend the dovecot configuration

    configs:
        - source: xapian
        - target: /tmp/docker-mailserver/dovecot/fts-xapian-plugin.cf

# Full-text-search Dovecot config for Xapian (example config from DMS docs without opt-in sections):

  xapian:
    content: |
      mail_plugins = $$mail_plugins fts fts_xapian
      plugin {
          fts = xapian
          fts_xapian = partial=3 full=20 attachments=1 verbose=2
          fts_autoindex = yes
          fts_enforced = yes
      }
      service indexer-worker {
          # limit size of indexer-worker RAM usage, ex: 512MB, 1GB, 2GB
          vsz_limit = 2GB
      }
      plugin {
          fts_decoder = decode2text
      }
      service decode2text {
          executable = script /usr/lib/dovecot/decode2text.sh
          user = vmail
          unix_listener decode2text {
          mode = 0666
          }
      }

i can see that the config file is correctly copied to ./DATA/dms/config/dovecot/fts-xapian-plugin.cf

After restarting the container with
docker compose down && docker compose up --force-recreate -d

and checking the dovecot config with
./setup.sh debug login doveconf | grep fts

the full text search config is not added to the dovecot config.

am i doing something wrong or is this a bug?

Answered by polarathene

May 1, 2025

I just followed the instructions in the linked docs page, then doveconf | grep xapian output shows that Dovecot has read in the configuration. You are doing something incorrectly on your side.

Here's what I did, adapted to the configs feature:

services:
  dms:
    image: ghcr.io/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver:latest
    container_name: dms
    hostname: mail.example.test
    configs:
      - source: dms-accounts
        target: /tmp/docker-mailserver/postfix-accounts.cf
      - source: dovecot-fts
        target: /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-plugin.conf

# NOTE: `$` in `compose.yaml` needs to be repeated to escape it,
# which opts out of the Docker Compose variable interpolation feature.
c…

View full answer

polarathene · 2025-04-30T12:40:33Z

polarathene
Apr 30, 2025
Maintainer

i can see that the config file is correctly copied to ./DATA/dms/config/dovecot/fts-xapian-plugin.cf

I've not tried mounting config files to paths that are persisted by volumes before 🤔 So that's interesting that it got sync'd into the volume / host.

am i doing something wrong or is this a bug?

I don't think we document any support for what you're trying to do?

We copy a single overrides file:

docker-mailserver/target/scripts/startup/setup.d/dovecot.sh

Line 97 in 491c30b

    
           [[ -f /tmp/docker-mailserver/dovecot.cf ]] && cp /tmp/docker-mailserver/dovecot.cf /etc/dovecot/local.conf

That is documented at the top of our Dovecot overrides page, and later there is a secton on other overrides having a direct mount into /etc/dovecot rather than indirectly through our config volume (thus no support).

If you were following the docs page for full-text search it shows a config file to store in your DMS config volume, but if you look at the compose.yaml example that follows it is mounted into the container at /etc/dovecot/..., DMS doesn't automate that.

2 replies

tilllt May 1, 2025
Author

I tried it verbatim how it's described in the docs now, the extra config file does still not be added to the dovecot config.

polarathene May 1, 2025
Maintainer

I just followed the instructions in the linked docs page, then doveconf | grep xapian output shows that Dovecot has read in the configuration. You are doing something incorrectly on your side.

Here's what I did, adapted to the configs feature:

services:
  dms:
    image: ghcr.io/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver:latest
    container_name: dms
    hostname: mail.example.test
    configs:
      - source: dms-accounts
        target: /tmp/docker-mailserver/postfix-accounts.cf
      - source: dovecot-fts
        target: /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-plugin.conf

# NOTE: `$` in `compose.yaml` needs to be repeated to escape it,
# which opts out of the Docker Compose variable interpolation feature.
configs:
  # DMS expects an account to be configured to run, this example provide an accounts already created.
  # Login credentials:
  # user: "[email protected]" password: "secret"
  dms-accounts:
    content: |
      [email protected]|{SHA512-CRYPT}$$6$$sbgFRCmQ.KWS5ryb$$EsWrlYosiadgdUOxCBHY0DQ3qFbeudDhNMqHs6jZt.8gmxUwiLVy738knqkHD4zj4amkb296HFqQ3yDq4UXt8.

  dovecot-fts:
    content: |
      mail_plugins = $$mail_plugins fts fts_xapian

      plugin {
          fts = xapian
          fts_xapian = partial=3 full=20 verbose=0
          fts_autoindex = yes
          fts_enforced = yes
      }
      
      service indexer-worker {
          # limit size of indexer-worker RAM usage, ex: 512MB, 1GB, 2GB
          vsz_limit = 1GB
      }

$ docker compose up -d --force-recreate
$ docker compose exec -it dms bash -c 'doveconf | grep xapian'

mail_plugins = " quota fts fts_xapian"
  fts = xapian
  fts_xapian = partial=3 full=20 verbose=0
  mail_plugins = " quota fts fts_xapian sieve"
  mail_plugins = " quota fts fts_xapian sieve"
  mail_plugins = " quota fts fts_xapian imap_quota"

That should work for you and matches the documented example config. As your config differs perhaps there was an error logged somewhere about a problem preventing it from working 🤷‍♂️

If that's the case you may be affected by this issue, but no one took action to resolve it. So in that sense your decision to enable decode2text is probably broken and would need to be fixed as described in that issue linked.

Answer selected by tilllt

tilllt · 2025-05-01T09:44:11Z

tilllt
May 1, 2025
Author

Thanks, that seem to work now!
The decode2text error doesnt occur (yet) so i hope attachments will get indexed too, which would make IMAP fulltext-search much more useful.

For some reason i assumed that all config files needed to be created in /tmp/ and would be copied over.
When trying the way it was described in the fulltext docs, i had an extra ":ro" attribute appended to the bind mount of the config override (dont know why) which seemed to messs with the setup somehow...

thanks again.

2 replies

tilllt May 1, 2025
Author

btw. starting with the next dovecot release, the "official" dovecor full-text search (also based on xapian) will be
https://github.com/slusarz/dovecot-fts-flatcurve

dont know what is the reason why the dovecot team chose that implementation over fts-xapian, but maybe it would be good to take a look at it for future DMS releases.

polarathene May 1, 2025
Maintainer

For some reason i assumed that all config files needed to be created in /tmp/ and would be copied over.

Only when we have official support for such. We generally discourage mounts to internal config locations in the event that we manipulate that with our own scripts, but read-only mounts may be safer (Compose configs feature should be good for that).

i had an extra ":ro" attribute appended to the bind mount of the config override (dont know why) which seemed to messs with the setup somehow...

:ro is for volumes which has the syntax source:target:options, :ro being read-only. With configs you provide source and target more explicitly and it's technically read-only in the sense that changes won't be persisted on the next restart.

So if you had :ro as part of target it would be part of the filename and the conf.d/ location is only loading config files ending with .conf.

but maybe it would be good to take a look at it for future DMS releases.

Yes we're aware of that, there's existing discussions regarding it 👍

Problem is a lack of time from existing contributors though. We are more concerned about the upcoming Debian 13 upgrade as Dovecot 2.3 => 2.4 is a breaking change with lots of config changes on our end to sort out and vrify compatibility with DMS.

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