Problem with Data Directory location using symbolic links

[derekwnek]

Hello,

Our production environment has been running Squirrelmail 1.4.19, vpopmail,
Courier IMAP, PHP 5.2.9 on RHEL 5 without any issues.  We are running this
on two servers behind a cisco CSS load balancer and both with a
/home/vpopmail NFS mount  to a common shared storage so that there is only
one common set of Maildirs and one common location for vpopmaiI.
Squirrelmail is installed to /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/webmail.

Here are the pertinent config settings:

General Options
1.  Data Directory               : /var/local/squirrelmail/data/    (sym
linked to /home/vpopmail/webmail/data/)

# ls -l /var/local/squirrelmail/data
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Jun 23 11:15 /var/local/squirrelmail/data ->
/home/vpopmail/webmail/data/

# ls -l /var/local/squirrelmail/data/default_*
-rw------- 1 daemon daemon 23607 Sep  4 13:43
/var/local/squirrelmail/data/default_abook
-rw-rw---- 1 daemon daemon   666 Aug 14 09:10
/var/local/squirrelmail/data/default_pref

Install Process:
1.  Renamed the Squirrelmail root web directory from webmail to
webmail-1.4.19
2.  Untarred Squirrelmail 1.4.20-RC2 and named it webmail
3.  Ran conf.pl from webmail/config and webmail-1.4.19/config in two
separate windows ensuring all of the entries are set the same.

Error:
1.  When logging in as user X, I receive the following error:

Error opening ../data/default_pref
Could not create initial preference file!
/var/local/squirrelmail/data/ should be writable by user daemon
Please contact your system administrator and report this error.

You can see above that the default_pref file is owned by daemon:daemon with
rw perms on both owner and group

I then tried to change the config to point directly to
/home/vpopmail/webmail/data/  and received the same error with the new
location identified.
I then removed the symbolic link and placed the default and user X pref's
and abook files in /var/local/squirrelmail/data and was able to login
successfully.
I don't like this because then the files will get out of sync between the
two servers behind the load balancer. I found the ".." in the error to be
somewhat interesting.

Thank you for your support !
Derek






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[Marc Powell]

On Sep 10, 2009, at 3:48 PM, dwnek@... wrote:

> Error:
> 1.  When logging in as user X, I receive the following error:
>
> Error opening ../data/default_pref
> Could not create initial preference file!
> /var/local/squirrelmail/data/ should be writable by user daemon
> Please contact your system administrator and report this error.
>
> You can see above that the default_pref file is owned by  
> daemon:daemon with
> rw perms on both owner and group

That's not what it's complaining about. It's trying to create a _new_  
file in /home/vpopmail/webmail/data/, the target of your symlink from /
var/local/squirrelmail/data. Did you verify the permissions on *that  
directory* as indicated? Can you touch a file on that NFS mount as the  
daemon user?

--
Marc

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[Jon Angliss]

On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:48:13 -0400, dwnek@... wrote:

>
>Hello,
>
>Our production environment has been running Squirrelmail 1.4.19, vpopmail,
>Courier IMAP, PHP 5.2.9 on RHEL 5 without any issues.  We are running this
>on two servers behind a cisco CSS load balancer and both with a
>/home/vpopmail NFS mount  to a common shared storage so that there is only
>one common set of Maildirs and one common location for vpopmaiI.
>Squirrelmail is installed to /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/webmail.
>
>Here are the pertinent config settings:
>
>General Options
>1.  Data Directory               : /var/local/squirrelmail/data/    (sym
>linked to /home/vpopmail/webmail/data/)
>
># ls -l /var/local/squirrelmail/data
>lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Jun 23 11:15 /var/local/squirrelmail/data ->
>/home/vpopmail/webmail/data/

Silly question, but why not just tell SquirrelMail to look in
/home/vpopmail/webmail/data instead of using a symlink?

>
># ls -l /var/local/squirrelmail/data/default_*
>-rw------- 1 daemon daemon 23607 Sep  4 13:43
>/var/local/squirrelmail/data/default_abook
>-rw-rw---- 1 daemon daemon   666 Aug 14 09:10
>/var/local/squirrelmail/data/default_pref
>
>Install Process:
>1.  Renamed the Squirrelmail root web directory from webmail to
>webmail-1.4.19
>2.  Untarred Squirrelmail 1.4.20-RC2 and named it webmail
>3.  Ran conf.pl from webmail/config and webmail-1.4.19/config in two
>separate windows ensuring all of the entries are set the same.
>
>Error:
>1.  When logging in as user X, I receive the following error:
>
>Error opening ../data/default_pref
>Could not create initial preference file!
>/var/local/squirrelmail/data/ should be writable by user daemon
>Please contact your system administrator and report this error.
>
>You can see above that the default_pref file is owned by daemon:daemon with
>rw perms on both owner and group
>
>I then tried to change the config to point directly to
>/home/vpopmail/webmail/data/  and received the same error with the new
>location identified.
>I then removed the symbolic link and placed the default and user X pref's
>and abook files in /var/local/squirrelmail/data and was able to login
>successfully.

This hints that either the permissions altered, or you had some other
policies applied maybe via a .htaccess file?

>I don't like this because then the files will get out of sync between the
>two servers behind the load balancer. I found the ".." in the error to be
>somewhat interesting.

Preference databases are handy for this :)

>
>Thank you for your support !
>Derek
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on
>what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with
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>-----
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>Posting guidelines: http://squirrelmail.org/postingguidelines
>List address: squirrelmail-users@...
>List archives: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.mail.squirrelmail.user
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--
Jonathan Angliss
<jon@...>


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