Gamin/IMAP issue

[Michael Powell]

Daniel Staal wrote:

> 
> Since upgrading to 9.1 I've been getting errors retrieving my email via
> IMAP.  They don't appear to actually prevent anything, but they are
> annoying at least.  (And while I haven't noticed anything else that is
> having the same errors that doesn't mean it's not happening...)
> 
> The errors I'm getting are:
> Failed to connect to socket /tmp/fam-daniel/fam-
> Failed to create cache file: maildirwatch (daniel)
> Error: Input/output error
> Check for proper operation and configuration
> of the File Access Monitor daemon (famd).
> 
> ('daniel' of course being the name of my user.)  I'm using courier-IMAP
> and
> gamin.  The only thing I can find online on this is someone else on the
> freebsd forums who had the same problem ~8 years ago, who eventually gave
> up and switched to fam.  (Well, other than the ones that say 'install
> fam/gamin', which I have installed, but doesn't appear to be working.)  I
> have rebuilt and reinstalled both courier-IMAP and gamin.  (I actually did
> a 'rebuild all dependencies' for gamin.)  Permissions on the /tmp and
> /tmp/fam-daniel directories are as I'd expect.  I've also increased
> kern.maxfiles to 100000, to make sure it can handle my large maildir
> directories.  (Though this wasn't a problem before I upgraded.)

Not exactly sure where the problem stems from, but one thing you may wish to 
consider: do make config on the courier-imap port and deselect the 'with 
gamin' option and rebuild/make reinstall. I ran courier-imap forever without 
gamin so I suspect it's not really needed. If this works out remove gamin 
from the box if there is nothing else using it. Same for fam - if it isn't 
absolutely required by anything get rid of it. Only port I have that 
actually uses/depends on gamin for me is Samba36.

The only thing I can think of why courier-imap might have use for gamin/fam 
is for shared folders and shared folder indexing. This I do not use. YMMV?

Note: /tmp is usually a 'sticky bit' set - mode 1777. I've had a time or two 
in the past where I've muffed that up.
 
> Anyone have any other ideas on where I can start troubleshooting?  (And
> yes, I'm considering upgrading to Dovecot, but I want to know everything
> is working first.)
> 

I just made the move to dovecot2 after 10 years, or so, of using courier-
imap. Not that I ever had any trouble with courier-imap either, but the 
dovecot2 is a little cleaner install with fewer 'satellite' addons. Been 
using it a month now and am happy with results. It also slid right in and 
took over the existing Maildir contents from pre-existing courier-imap - I 
was very happy to see this!

-Mike