Cannot open mailbox /var/mail/<user>: Permission denied

Question

Why can't I read mail with the mail command?

(There's almost certainly a problem with the mail-stack-delivery configuration, either postfix or dovecot, or both, but I should still be able to at least read that there's no mail from the CLI.)

thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ ls -l /var/mail
total 0
thufir@mordor:~$ 

much extraneous detail to follow:

thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ swaks --to thufir@localhost
=== Trying localhost:25...
=== Connected to localhost.
<-  220 mordor.bounceme.net ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu)
 -> EHLO mordor.bounceme.net
<-  250-mordor.bounceme.net
<-  250-PIPELINING
<-  250-SIZE 10240000
<-  250-VRFY
<-  250-ETRN
<-  250-STARTTLS
<-  250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
<-  250-8BITMIME
<-  250 DSN
 -> MAIL FROM:<[email protected]>
<-  250 2.1.0 Ok
 -> RCPT TO:<thufir@localhost>
<-  250 2.1.5 Ok
 -> DATA
<-  354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
 -> Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 05:01:02 -0800
 -> To: thufir@localhost
 -> From: [email protected]
 -> Subject: test Tue, 16 Feb 2016 05:01:02 -0800
 -> X-Mailer: swaks v20130209.0 jetmore.org/john/code/swaks/
 -> 
 -> This is a test mailing
 -> 
 -> .
<-  250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 305E2540242
 -> QUIT
<-  221 2.0.0 Bye
=== Connection closed with remote host.
thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ mail
Cannot open mailbox /var/mail/thufir: Permission denied
No mail for thufir
thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ ll /var/mail/
total 8
drwxrwsr-x  2 root mail 4096 Oct 21 08:49 ./
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Oct 21 09:07 ../
thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ sudo apt-get install mailutils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
mailutils is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 145 not upgraded.
thufir@mordor:~$ 

the mail logs:

thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ tail /var/log/mail.err 
Feb 16 04:08:02 mordor postfix/sendmail[12090]: fatal: open /etc/postfix/main.cf: No such file or directory
thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ tail /var/log/mail.log 
Feb 16 04:59:42 mordor postfix/qmgr[17837]: 9717754023A: from=<[email protected]>, size=475, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Feb 16 04:59:42 mordor postfix/local[19239]: 9717754023A: to=<thufir@localhost>, relay=local, delay=0.28, delays=0.2/0/0/0.08, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: lda(thufir,)Error: Error reading configuration: stat(/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf) failed: No such file or directory lda: Fatal: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information. )
Feb 16 05:01:02 mordor postfix/smtpd[19234]: connect from localhost[127.0.0.1]
Feb 16 05:01:02 mordor postfix/smtpd[19234]: 305E2540242: client=localhost[127.0.0.1]
Feb 16 05:01:02 mordor postfix/cleanup[19238]: 305E2540242: message-id=<[email protected]>
Feb 16 05:01:02 mordor postfix/smtpd[19234]: disconnect from localhost[127.0.0.1]
Feb 16 05:01:02 mordor postfix/qmgr[17837]: 305E2540242: from=<[email protected]>, size=475, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Feb 16 05:01:02 mordor postfix/local[19239]: 305E2540242: to=<thufir@localhost>, relay=local, delay=0.22, delays=0.15/0/0/0.08, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: lda(thufir,)Error: Error reading configuration: stat(/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf) failed: No such file or directory lda: Fatal: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information. )
Feb 16 05:05:49 mordor postfix/qmgr[17837]: 9717754023A: from=<[email protected]>, size=475, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Feb 16 05:05:49 mordor postfix/local[19491]: 9717754023A: to=<thufir@localhost>, relay=local, delay=367, delays=367/0.04/0/0.05, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: lda(thufir,)Error: Error reading configuration: stat(/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf) failed: No such file or directory lda: Fatal: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information. )
thufir@mordor:~$ 

For brevity, I won't include postconf output, but doveconf shows:

thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ doveconf 
# 2.2.18: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# Pigeonhole version 0.4.8 (0c4ae064f307+)
doveconf: Fatal: open(/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf) failed: No such file or directory
thufir@mordor:~$ 

I'd like to just purge the entire mail-stack-delivery package.

Solution

possible solution:

thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ sudo touch /var/mail/thufir
thufir@mordor:~$ sudo chown thufir:mail /var/mail/thufir
thufir@mordor:~$ sudo chmod o-r /var/mail/thufir
thufir@mordor:~$ sudo chmod g+rw /var/mail/thufir
thufir@mordor:~$ 
thufir@mordor:~$ mail
No mail for thufir
thufir@mordor:~$ 

GIYF type fix:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-server-73/cannot-open-mailbox-var-mail-user-permission-denied-no-mail-for-user-4175481439/

the TBone post

Comments

[Startec]

Are we supposed to do this for every single user on the system? It seems like a lot of steps to do each time...