Edit File: SharedMailboxes.Shared.txt
Mailbox sharing between users ============================= To enable mailbox sharing, you'll need to create a shared namespace. See <ACL.txt> for more information about ACL-specific settings. ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- # User's private mail location. mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir # When creating any namespaces, you must also have a private namespace: namespace { type = private separator = / prefix = #location defaults to mail_location. inbox = yes } namespace { type = shared separator = / prefix = shared/%%u/ # a) Per-user seen flags. Maildir indexes are shared. (INDEXPVT requires v2.2+) location = maildir:%%h/Maildir:INDEXPVT=~/Maildir/shared/%%u # b) Per-user seen flags. Maildir indexes are not shared. If users have direct filesystem level access to their mails, this is a safer option: #location = maildir:%%h/Maildir:INDEX=~/Maildir/shared/%%u:INDEXPVT=~/Maildir/shared/%%u subscriptions = no list = children } mail_plugins = acl protocol imap { mail_plugins = $mail_plugins imap_acl } plugin { acl = vfile } ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- This creates a shared/ namespace under which each user's mailboxes are. If you have multiple domains and allow sharing between them, you might want to set 'prefix=shared/%%d/%%n/' instead (although %%u works just fine too). If you don't, you might want to drop the domain part and instead use 'prefix=shared/%%n/'. 'list=children' specifies that if no one has shared mailboxes to the user, the "shared" directory isn't listed by the LIST command. If you wish it to be visible always, you can set 'list=yes'. The 'location' setting specifies how to access other users' mailboxes. If you use %%h, the user's home directory is asked from auth process via auth-userdb socket. See <LDA.txt> for how to configure the socket. If the users' mailboxes can be found using a template, it's faster not to use the %%h. For example: ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- location = maildir:/var/mail/%%d/%%n/Maildir:INDEXPVT=~/Maildir/shared/%%u ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- % vs %% ------- %var expands to the logged in user's variable, while %%var expands to the other users' variables. For example if your name is "myself" and "someone1" and "someone2" have shared mailboxes to you, the variables could be expanded like: * %u expands to "myself" * %%u expands to "someone1" or "someone2" * %h might expand to "/home/myself" * %%h might expand to "/home/someone1" or "/home/someone2" * ~/ equals %h/ Note that in e.g. mail_location setting you might need both. For example in: ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- mail_location = maildir:%%h/Maildir:INDEXPVT=%h/Maildir/shared/%%u ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- What it means is: * %%h/Maildir points to the other user's Maildir, e.g. "/home/someone1". * :INDEXPVT=%h/Maildir/shared/%%u points to a per-user directory under your own Maildir, e.g. "/home/myself/Maildir/someone1" or "/home/myself/Maildir/someone2". This is necessary for storing per-user seen flags. dbox ---- With dbox the index files are a very important part of the mailboxes. You must not try to :INDEX= to have copies of index files. This will only result in mailbox corruption. (INDEXPVT can be used though.) Filesystem permissions ---------------------- Dovecot assumes that it can access the other users' mailboxes. If you use multiple UNIX UIDs, you may have problems setting up the permissions so that the mailbox sharing works. Dovecot never modifies existing files' permissions. See <SharedMailboxes.Permissions.txt> for more information. Shared mailbox listing ---------------------- With the above configuration it's possible to open shared mailboxes if you know their name, but they won't be visible in the mailbox list. This is because Dovecot has no way of knowing what users have shared mailboxes to whom. Iterating through all users and looking inside their mail directories would be horribly inefficient for more than a couple users. To overcome this problem Dovecot needs a dictionary, which contains the list of users who have shared mailboxes and to whom they have shared. If the users aren't properly listed in this dictionary, their shared mailboxes won't be visible. Currently there's no way to automatically rebuild this dictionary, so make sure it doesn't get lost. If it does, each user having shared mailboxes must use the IMAP SETACL command (see below) to get the dictionary updated for themselves. You could use any dictionary backend, including SQL, but a simple flat file should work pretty well too: ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- plugin { acl_shared_dict = file:/var/lib/dovecot/db/shared-mailboxes.db } ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- The IMAP processes must be able to write to the 'db/' directory. If you're using system users, you probably want to make it mode 0770 and group 'sharedusers' and set 'mail_access_groups=sharedusers' (or something similar). If you use multiple domains and don't wish users to share their mailboxes to users in other domains, you can use separate dict files for each domain: ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- plugin { # assumes mailboxes are in /var/mail/%d/%n: acl_shared_dict = file:/var/mail/%d/shared-mailboxes.db } ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using SQL dictionary -------------------- 'dovecot.conf': ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- plugin { acl_shared_dict = proxy::acl } dict { acl = pgsql:/etc/dovecot/dovecot-dict-sql.conf.ext } ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- See <Dict.txt> for more information, especially about permission issues. Database tables: ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- CREATE TABLE user_shares ( from_user varchar(100) not null, to_user varchar(100) not null, dummy char(1) DEFAULT '1', -- always '1' currently primary key (from_user, to_user) ); COMMENT ON TABLE user_shares IS 'User from_user shares folders to user to_user.'; CREATE INDEX to_user ON user_shares (to_user); -- because we always search for to_user CREATE TABLE anyone_shares ( from_user varchar(100) not null, dummy char(1) DEFAULT '1', -- always '1' currently primary key (from_user) ); COMMENT ON TABLE anyone_shares IS 'User from_user shares folders to anyone.'; ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- '/etc/dovecot/dovecot-dict-sql.conf.ext': ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- connect = host=localhost dbname=mails user=sqluser password=sqlpass map { pattern = shared/shared-boxes/user/$to/$from table = user_shares value_field = dummy fields { from_user = $from to_user = $to } } map { pattern = shared/shared-boxes/anyone/$from table = anyone_shares value_field = dummy fields { from_user = $from } } ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mailbox sharing --------------- You can use <doveadm acl> [Tools.Doveadm.ACL.txt] to share mailboxes or it can be done using IMAP SETACL command. It is the only way to update the shared mailbox list dictionary. Below is a quick introduction to IMAP ACL commands. See RFC 4314 [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4314.txt] for more details. * MYRIGHTS <mailbox>: Returns the user's current rights to the mailbox. * GETACL <mailbox>: Returns the mailbox's all ACLs. * SETACL <mailbox> <id> [+|-]<rights>: Give <id> the specified rights to the mailbox. * DELETEACL <mailbox> [-]<id>: Delete <id>'s ACL from the mailbox. <id> is one of: * anyone: Matches all users, including anonymous users. * authenticated: Like "anyone", but doesn't match anonymous users. * $group: Matches all users belonging to the group ($ is not part of the group name). * $!group: See group-override in <ACL.txt> (Dovecot-specific feature). * user: Matches the given user. The $group syntax is not a standard, but it is mentioned in RFC 4314 examples and is also understood by at least Cyrus IMAP. Having '-' before the identifier specifies negative rights. See <ACL.txt> for list of <rights>. Sharing mailboxes to everyone ----------------------------- By default Dovecot doesn't allow using the IMAP "anyone" or "authenticated" identifier, because it would be an easy way to spam other users in the system. If you wish to allow it, set: ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- plugin { acl_anyone = allow } ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note that you can also do this only for some users by using the second table "anyone_shares". Every user listed in this table shares his folders with everyone. See also <userdb extra field> [UserDatabase.ExtraFields.txt]. IMAP ACL examples ----------------- Let's begin with some simple example that first gives "read" and "lookup" rights, and later adds "write-seen" right: ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 SETACL Work user@domain rl 1 OK Setacl complete. 2 SETACL Work user@domain +s 2 OK Setacl complete. 3 GETACL Work * ACL "Work" "user@domain" lrs "myself" lrwstipekxacd 3 OK Getacl completed. ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's see how negative rights work by testing it on ourself. See how we initially have "lookup" right, but later we don't: ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 MYRIGHTS Work * MYRIGHTS "Work" lrwstipekxacd 1 OK Myrights completed. 2 SETACL Work -myself l 2 OK Setacl complete. 3 GETACL Work * ACL "Work" "-myself" l "user@domain" lr "myself" lrwstipekxacd 3 OK Getacl completed. 4 myrights Work * MYRIGHTS "Work" rwstipekxacd 4 OK Myrights completed. ---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- Troubleshooting --------------- * Make sure the % and %% variables are specified correctly in the namespace location.'mail_debug=yes' will help you see if Dovecot is trying to access correct paths. * 'doveadm acl debug -u user@domain shared/user/box' can be helpful in figuring out why a mailbox can't be accessed. (This file was created from the wiki on 2018-02-28 04:42)