Help with Cyrus

[Derek Broughton]

Jan Sneep wrote:

> Why is EVERYTHING in LINUX so complicated and SOOO frustrating to get
> ANYTHING to work ?????

You're trying to perform an _extremely_ complicated task, and you want  it
to be simple?

> I've been trying to get OpenExchange working, but that is proving very

That's what I mean.  OpenExchange is pretty complex...

> elusive, like everything else. One of the suggestions from the
> OpenExcahnge forum is to get Cyrus working as that has helped some get the
> OpenExchange installer to work. So today's task is to try and verify that
> Cyrus is working properly.

And cyrus is far more complex than any IMAP server needs to be.  Do you
really have to have cyrus with OpenExchange.  I've used both Courier and
Dovecot and both are simple (Dovecot, more so).
> 
> file:///usr/share/doc/cyrus-doc-2.2/html/install-configure.html
> 
> They talk about creating a user called cyrus and a group called mail,
> don't actually tell you how to do this, but do warn you of the
> consequences of not using those names? 

Oh boy.  It shouldn't be the job of any application to explain basic system
administration procedures.  That said, cyrus _should_ have done that
itself.  Both courier and dovecot do.

> Anyways, the document then rambles 
> on about steps to install the software, but thanks to Synaptic, I think it
> is installed and working. So I go to System -> Administration -> Users and
> Groups and try to add a user "cyrus", but even though it is not shown as
> an existing user, just "root" and "jan" are shown as users, I can't add
> user "cyrus" because that name a ready exists. 

In which case, the Gnome user admin tool no doubt has a check box just like
the KDE one which makes it not show 'system' users (I'm a bit surprised
that root is shown, though - and why DO you have a root?)

> First, you have define a "password" for the user admin for the cyrusadm.
> With root make this:
> 
> # saslpasswd2 -c cyrus
> Password: TYPE YOUR CYRUS PASSWORD HERE
> Again (for verification): RETYPE YOUR CYRUS PASSWORD
> 
> The only password I know is the one I use for sudo commands, so I type
> that one in and it works, or at least it looks like it does; but then the
> next step fails,

You're _creating_ a password, not using an existing one.

> root at ubuntu:/opt/open-xchange/sbin# saslpasswd2 -c cyrus
> Password:
> Again (for verification):
> root at ubuntu:/opt/open-xchange/sbin# cyradm --user cyrus localhost

...no idea...

> IMAP Password:
>               Login failed: authentication failure at
> /usr/lib/perl5/Cyrus/IMAP/Admin.pm line 119
> cyradm: cannot authenticate to server as cyrus
> 
> 
> And yet the next step in the instructions is to test an execute this
> command;
> 
> root at ubuntu:/opt/open-xchange/sbin# telnet localhost imap
> Trying 127.0.0.1...
> Connected to localhost.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> * OK ubuntu Cyrus IMAP4 v2.2.13-Debian-2.2.13-10ubuntu2 server ready
> - logout
> * BYE LOGOUT received
> - OK Completed
> Connection closed by foreign host.

Yes?  That's exactly as expected.  You haven't _tried_ to login. 
Personally, I think those instructions were backwards.  You check that you
can connect to the imap server, _then_ you check that you can login to it. 
> 
> So can anyone help? Does anyone know if I need to add a cyrus user and a
> mail group? If so how do I add cyrus as a user?

man useradd
man usermod
man groupadd
man groupmod
-- 
derek