ManageSieve Troubleshooting
===========================

Like Dovecot itself, *the ManageSieve service always logs a detailed error
message* if something goes wrong at the server (refer to <Dovecot Logging>
[Logging.txt] for more details): the logs are the first place to look if you
suspect something is wrong. To get additional debug messages in your log file,
you should set 'mail_debug=yes' in dovecot.conf (inside 'protocol sieve {...}
'if you want to enable this forManageSieve only).

If the client commits protocol violations or sends invalid scripts, an error
response is provided to the client which is not necessarily logged on the
server. A goodManageSieve client presents such error messages to the user.

Keep in mind that the the ManageSieve service only provides the Sieve
/protocol/, which may be somewhat confusing. This protocol can only be used to
/upload/ Sieve scripts and /activate/ them for execution. Performing the steps
below therefore only verifies that this functionality is working and *not*
whether Sieve scripts are correctly being executed upon delivery. The execution
of Sieve scripts is performed by the Dovecot <Local Delivery Agent (LDA)>
[LDA.txt] or its <LMTP service> [LMTP.txt] using the <LDA Sieve plugin>
[Pigeonhole.Sieve.txt]. If you have problems with Sieve script execution upon
delivery, you are referred to the <Sieve Troubleshooting page>
[Pigeonhole.Sieve.Troubleshooting.txt].

Manual Login and Script Upload
------------------------------

If you fail to login or upload scripts to the server, it is not necessarily
caused by Dovecot or your configuration. It is often best to test
yourManageSieve server manually first. This also provides you with the direct
error messages from the server without intermission of your client. If you do
not use TLS, you can connect using a simple 'telnet' or 'netcat' connection to
the configured port (typically 4190 or 2000 for older setups). Otherwise you
must use a TLS-capable text protocol client like 'gnutls-cli' as described
below. Upon connection, the server presents the initial greeting with its
capabilities:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"IMPLEMENTATION" "dovecot"
"SASL" "PLAIN"
"SIEVE" "comparator-i;ascii-numeric fileinto reject vacation imapflags notify
include envelope body relational regex subaddress copy"
"STARTTLS"
OK "Dovecot ready."
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that the reported 'STARTTLS' capability means that the server accepts TLS,
but, since you are using telnet/netcat, you cannot use this (refer to Manual
TLS Login below). The 'SASL' capability lists the available SASL authentication
mechanisms. If this list is empty and 'STARTTLS' is available, it probably
means that the server forces you to initiate TLS first (as dictated by
''disable_plaintext_auth=yes'' in dovecot.conf).

Now you need to log in. Although potentially multiple SASL mechanisms are
available, only 'PLAIN' is described here. Authentication is performed using
theManageSieve 'AUTHENTICATE' command. This command typically looks as follows
when the 'PLAIN' mechanism is used:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTHENTICATE "PLAIN" "<base64-encoded credentials>"
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The credentials are the base64-encoded version of the string
'"\0<username>\0<password"' (in which '\0' represents the ASCII NUL character).
Generating this is cumbersome and a bit daunting for the novice user, so for
convenience a simple Perl script is provided to generate the 'AUTHENTICATE'
command for you. It is available here
[http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org/utilities/sieve-auth-command.pl] and used as
follows:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
sieve-auth-command.pl <username> <password>
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The command is written to stdout and you can paste this to your protocol
session, e.g.:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTHENTICATE "PLAIN" "AHVzZXJuYW1lAHBhc3N3b3Jk"
OK "Logged in."
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that you are logged in, you can upload a script. This is done using the
'PUTSCRIPT' command. Its first argument is the name for the script and its
second argument is a string literal. A string literal starts with a length
specification ''{<bytes>+}'' followed by a newline. Thereafter the server
expects '<bytes>' bytes of script data. The following uploads a trivial 6 byte
long sieve script that keeps every message (6th byte is the newline character):

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
PUTSCRIPT "hutsefluts" {6+}
keep;
OK "Putscript completed."
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upon successful upload, you should find a file called 'hutsefluts.sieve' in
your 'sieve_dir' directory. The script should also be listed by the server as
follows when the 'LISTSCRIPTS' command is issued:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
LISTSCRIPTS
"hutsefluts"
OK "Listscripts completed."
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can check whether your script is uploaded correctly by downloading it using
the 'GETSCRIPT' command. This command accepts the name of the downloaded script
as its only parameter:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
GETSCRIPT "hutsefluts"
{6}
keep;
OK "Getscript completed."
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

To let the Sieve plugin use your newly uploaded script, you must activate it
using the 'SETACTIVE' command (only one script can be active at any time). The
active script is indicated 'ACTIVE' in the 'LISTSCRIPTS' output, e.g.:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
SETACTIVE "hutsefluts"
OK "Setactive completed."
LISTSCRIPTS
"hutsefluts" ACTIVE
OK "Listscripts completed.
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The symbolic link configured with the 'sieve' setting should now point to the
activated script in the 'sieve_dir' directory. If no script is active, this
symbolic link is absent.

Manual TLS Login
----------------

When TLS needs to be used during manual testing, 'gnutls-cli' provides the
means to do so. This command-line utility is part of the GNUTLS distribution
and on most systems this should be easy to install. It is used to connect
toManageSieve as follows:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
gnutls-cli --starttls -p <port> <host>
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This starts the client in plain text mode first. As shown in the previous
section, the server presents a greeting with all capabilities of the server. If
'STARTTLS' is listed, you can issue the 'STARTTLS' command as follows:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
STARTTLS
OK "Begin TLS negotiation now."
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

If an OK response is given by the server you can press 'Ctrl-D' to make
'gnutls-cli' start the TLS negotiation. Upon pressing 'Ctrl-D', 'gnutls-cli'
will show information on the negotiated TLS session and finally the first
response of the server is shown:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"IMPLEMENTATION" "dovecot"
"SASL" "PLAIN"
"SIEVE" "comparator-i;ascii-numeric fileinto reject vacation imapflags notify
include envelope body relational regex subaddress copy"
OK "TLS negotiation successful."
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hereafter, you can continue to authenticate and upload a script as described in
the previous section.

Client Problems
---------------

If manual efforts to upload a script are successful, but your client still
fails, you need to obtain a view on what the client communicates with the
server. A common method is to sniff the client protocol session using a tool
like 'ngrep'. However, this will not work when TLS is active. If the problem is
not specific to TLS, you are advised to temporarily turn off TLS and sniff the
plain text protocol. If TLS is part of the issue, you can use Dovecot's
<rawlog> [Debugging.Rawlog.txt] facility to see what is going on if the client
is logged in. If the authentication is the problem, there is no real nice way
to obtain a transcript of the protocol. One way is to run managesieve from
inetd, wrapping it into a script that writes the protocol messages somewhere
(*FIXME*: This needs some checking and explanation). Alternatively, if
possible, the client can be altered to write its protocol messages somewhere.

Refer to the <ManageSieve Clients page> [Pigeonhole.ManageSieve.Clients.txt]
for information on known client problems.

Known Server Issues and Protocol Deviations
-------------------------------------------

 * The ANONYMOUS authentication mechanism is currently not supported and
   explicitly denied.

*NOTE*: If you add new issues to this list, notify the author or send an e-mail
to the Dovecot mailing list [http://dovecot.org/mailinglists.html]. In any
case, you must make sure that the issue is properly explained and that the
author can contact you for more information.

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