Troubleshooting

This section describes some problems commonly encountered on Cyrus systems, tells you how to diagnose them, and gives you a fix for one.

Testing the Server

From any account, telnet to the IMAP port on your Cyrus server and issue the IMAP NOOP command:

% telnet localhost imap
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
* OK venus Cyrus IMAP4 v1.5.14 server ready
. noop
. OK Completed

If the server returns the message OK Completed, then the server is up and responding. If it returns anything other than OK Completed, then there is a problem—check the following:

  1. Check that /etc/services contains an entry for imap :

  2. imap            143/tcp         imap            # IMAP Server

  3. Check that an entry for imapd exists in and that imapd runs as the cyrus user:

  4. imap stream tcp nowait cyrus /usr/cyrus/bin/imapd imapd

  5. Check the permissions on the imapd executable:

  6. $ls -l /usr/cyrus/bin/imapd
-rwxr-xr-x   1 cyrus   mail  303576 Apr  1 10:07 /usr/cyrus/bin/imapd*

  7. Check permissions on all directories on the path to imapd. The cyrus user must be able to traverse that path.

User cannot access mailboxes

If the server is up, then the problem is most likely a client configuration. Check to make sure she used the correct syntax to define her mailboxes.

If the syntax is correct, then the user may be trying to access a mailbox for which she has no permissions. In that case, check the ACL on the mailbox.

User stops receiving mail

If the user is able to log in to the server and read his mail, ...

Get Managing IMAP now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial