Authentication failing intermittently

[Vegard Svanberg]

Ubuntu 8.10, Dovecot 1.1.4.

Please see:

http://www.dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2009-February/037440.html

Short story: Randomly, about 1 of 10 attempts, authentication fails.

It seems this problem has already been fixed upstream (see 1.1.5):

http://www.dovecot.org/doc/NEWS-1.1

Any chance a new Dovecot package could be built soon?

Thanks in advance.

[JanBrinkmann (jbrinkmann)]

First of all, thank you very much for reporting this problem! This really helps to improve Ubuntu. Please add some more details to your report to make debugging and understanding your problem more easy to others.

- Which architecture are you using?
- Which version of the dovecot package do you have installed?
- Add some debug log excerpts to show what's happening when a login fails

[Vegard Svanberg (vegard-svanberg)]

* JanBrinkmann <email address hidden> [2009-02-14 13:45]:

> - Which architecture are you using?

Linux home 2.6.27-7-server #1 SMP Tue Nov 4 20:18:35 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5410 @ 2.33GHz

Ubuntu 8.10.

> - Which version of the dovecot package do you have installed?

1:1.1.4-0ubuntu1.2

> - Add some debug log excerpts to show what's happening when a login fails

This is what I get in mail.log, with debug enabled, when a login fails:

Feb 13 19:12:39 home dovecot: auth-worker(default): pam(vegardsv,127.0.0.1): lookup service=imap
Feb 13 19:12:39 home dovecot: auth-worker(default): pam(vegardsv,127.0.0.1): #1/1 style=1 msg=Password:
Feb 13 19:12:39 home dovecot: auth(default): client out: FAIL^I1^Iuser=vegardsv^Itemp
Feb 13 19:12:39 home dovecot: imap-login: Aborted login (auth failed, 1 attempts): user=<vegardsv>, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, secured

--
Vegard Svanberg <email address hidden> [*Takapa@IRC (EFnet)]

[Vegard Svanberg (vegard-svanberg)]

* Vegard Svanberg <email address hidden> [2009-02-14 14:55]:

[snip]

config:

# dovecot -n
# 1.1.4: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S
protocols: imap imaps pop3 pop3s
disable_plaintext_auth: no
login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login
login_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login
login_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login
login_processes_count: 100
login_max_processes_count: 250
mail_debug: yes
mail_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap
mail_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap
mail_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3
mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap
mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap
mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/pop3
auth default:
  mechanisms: plain login
  verbose: yes
  debug: yes
  debug_passwords: yes
  worker_max_count: 180
  worker_max_request_count: 3
  passdb:
    driver: pam
    args: session=yes *
  userdb:
    driver: passwd

--
Vegard Svanberg <email address hidden> [*Takapa@IRC (EFnet)]

[JanBrinkmann (jbrinkmann)]

Thank you very much for adding the requested information! Marking this one as confirmed. Now, somebody responsible for dovecot has to decide what to do.

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

I can probably backport this patch but there wont be a new version of dovecot available for main since its the LTS release.

Regards
chuck

[Vegard Svanberg (vegard-svanberg)]

* Chuck Short <email address hidden> [2009-02-15 21:35]:

> I can probably backport this patch but there wont be a new version of
> dovecot available for main since its the LTS release.

But .. 8.10 isn't LTS, is it?

--
Vegard Svanberg <email address hidden> [*Takapa@IRC (EFnet)]

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

Yes but there wont be any new versions ie (1.1.5) for hardy. Ill backport the patch.

thanks
chuck

[Vegard Svanberg (vegard-svanberg)]

Hardy? I'm on 8.10, isn't that Intrepid? Getting confused here :-)

Anyway, I was in a hurry so I grabbed the Dovecot package from Jaunty.
Seems to work (but not sure yet, I'll let it run for a few days).

* Chuck Short <email address hidden> [2009-02-17 15:05]:

> Yes but there wont be any new versions ie (1.1.5) for hardy. Ill
> backport the patch.
>
> thanks
> chuck
>
> --
> Authentication failing intermittently
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/329170
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in ???dovecot??? source package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Ubuntu 8.10, Dovecot 1.1.4.
>
> Please see:
>
> http://www.dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2009-February/037440.html
>
> Short story: Randomly, about 1 of 10 attempts, authentication fails.
>
> It seems this problem has already been fixed upstream (see 1.1.5):
>
> http://www.dovecot.org/doc/NEWS-1.1
>
> Any chance a new Dovecot package could be built soon?
>
> Thanks in advance.

--
Vegard Svanberg <email address hidden> [*Takapa@IRC (EFnet)]

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

This is already fixed in karmic.

Regards
chuck