Pigeonhole Sieve Troubleshooting
================================

This page explains how to approach problems with the <Sieve interpreter>
[Pigeonhole.Sieve.txt].

Contents


 1. Pigeonhole Sieve Troubleshooting

     1. Troubleshooting Approach

     2. Common Problems

         1. Sieve Scripts are not Executed

         2. Mailbox Names with non-ASCII Characters Cause Problems

Troubleshooting Approach
------------------------

/This section should contain a step-wise approach to troubleshooting./

Common Problems
---------------

Common configuration problems and their solutions are described here.

Sieve Scripts are not Executed
------------------------------

When Sieve scripts are not being executed, there are several possibilities:

Your MTA is not using Dovecot LDA or LMTP :
  Sieve scripts are executed by the Dovecot <LDA (Local Delivery Agent)>
  [LDA.txt] and/or the Dovecot <LMTP.txt> service. That is why you first need
  to check whether LDA or LMTP are actually being used. At least one of these
  is supposed to be called/accessed from your <MTA.txt>, e.g. Exim or Postfix,
  for local message delivery. Most MTAs have their own local delivery agent,
  and without explicit configuration this is what is used. In that case, your
  Sieve scripts are simply ignored. When you set 'mail_debug=yes' in your
  configuration, your logs will show details of LDA and/or LMTP execution. The
  following is an example of the first few log lines of an LDA delivery:

:
  ---%<-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  dovecot: lda: Debug: Loading modules from directory: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules
  dovecot: lda: Debug: Module loaded:
  /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/lib90_sieve_plugin.so
  dovecot: lda(hendrik): Debug: Effective uid=1000, gid=1000,
  home=/home/hendrik
  dovecot: lda(hendrik): Debug: Namespace inbox: type=private, prefix=, sep=,
  inbox=yes, hidden=no, list=yes, subscriptions=yes location=
  ---%<-----------------------------------------------------------------------

:
  The first lines show that LDA has found and loaded the Sieve plugin module.
  Then it shows for what user it is delivering and where his INBOX is located.
  LMTP produces similar log lines. If you don't see lines such as the above,
  your MTA is probably not using Dovecot for local delivery. You can verify
  whether Dovecot is working correctly by executing 'dovecot-lda' manually.

The Sieve plugin is not enabled :
  The Dovecot <LDA.txt> and <LMTP.txt> services do not provide Sieve support by
  default. Sieve support is provided as a separate plugin that needs to be
  enabled by adding it to the 'mail_plugins' setting in the 'protocol lda {...}
  ' section for the LDA and the 'protocol lmtp {...} ' section for LMTP. If
  this is omitted, Sieve scripts are ignored. Check the <configuration page>
  [Pigeonhole.Sieve.Configuration.txt] for more information. When you set
  'mail_debug=yes' in your configuration, your logs will show details of Sieve
  execution. The following is an example of the log lines produced for a simple
  Sieve execution:

:
  ---%<-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  dovecot: lda(hendrik): Debug: sieve: using sieve path for user's script:
  /home/hendrik/.dovecot.sieve
  dovecot: lda(hendrik): Debug: sieve: opening script
  /home/hendrik/.dovecot.sieve
  dovecot: lda(hendrik): Debug: sieve: binary save: not saving binary
  /home/hendrik/.dovecot.svbin, because it is already stored
  dovecot: lda(hendrik): Debug: sieve: executing script from
  /home/hendrik/.dovecot.svbin
  dovecot: lda(hendrik): sieve: msgid=2234234@host.example.com: stored mail
  into mailbox 'INBOX'
  ---%<-----------------------------------------------------------------------

  Without actually running LDA, you can also check if 'doveconf -f service=lda
  mail_plugins' includes "sieve".

The Sieve plugin is misconfigured or the involved Sieve scripts contain errors
  :
  If there is a configuration error or when a Sieve script cannot be compiled
  and executed, an error is always logged.

Mailbox Names with non-ASCII Characters Cause Problems
------------------------------------------------------

This problem most often manifests with the following error message:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
error: msgid=<234234.234234@example.com>: failed to store into mailbox
'INBOX/Co&APY-rdineren' (INBOX/Co&-APY-rdineren): Mailbox doesn't exist:
INBOX.Co&-APY-rdineren.
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Sieve script causing this error contained the following command:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
fileinto "INBOX/Co&APY-rdineren";
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The specified mailbox contains the non-ASCII character 'ö'. Unfortunately, the
author of this script used the wrong encoding. This is modified UTF-7 such as
used by IMAP. However, Sieve expects UTF-8 for mailbox names. Depending on
version and configuration, Dovecot uses modified UTF-7 internally. The Sieve
interpreter expects UTF-8 and converts that to UTF-7 when necessary. When the
mailbox is encoded in UTF-7 by the user, the '&' will just be escaped into '&-'
during the UTF-7 conversion, yielding an erroneous mailbox name for Dovecot.
That is what causes the error message presented above. Instead, the 'fileinto'
command should have looked as follows:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
fileinto "INBOX/Coördineren";
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The old CMUSieve plugin did use UTF-7 for folder names. Therefore, this problem
could have emerged after migrating from CMUSieve to Pigeonhole. In that case
you should carefully read the migration instructions
[http://wiki.dovecot.org/LDA/Sieve/Dovecot#Migration_from_CMUSieve] again.

Often the 'author' of such scripts is an older or misconfigured Sieve GUI
editor. For example, the SieveRules
[https://github.com/JohnDoh/Roundcube-Plugin-SieveRules-Managesieve#readme]
plugin for the RoundCube webmail IMAP client [http://roundcube.net/] has a
configuration option to enable the correct behavior:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$sieverules_config['folder_encoding'] = 'UTF-8';
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

(This file was created from the wiki on 2019-06-19 12:42)
