Concepts
********

This section gives an overview of several aspects of the Cyrus IMAP
server, as they relate to deployment.  In an effort to reduce
duplication of information, we will often direct you to documentation
in other areas.  Please do follow such referrals.


Access Control Lists
====================

Access to each mailbox is controlled by access control lists. Access
Control Lists (ACLs) provide a powerful mechanism for specifying the
users, or groups of users, who have permission to access the
mailboxes, and the degree of that access.

An ACL is a list of zero or more entries. Each entry contains a
mailbox, an Access Control Identifier (ACI) and a set of rights. The
ACI specifies the user or group of users for which the entry applies.
The set of rights is one or more letters or digits, each letter or
digit conferring a particular privilege.


Working with ACLs
-----------------

ACLs are manipulated via these subcommands within the cyradm(8)
program:

   * setaclmailbox

   * listaclmailbox

   * deleteaclmailbox


Sample ACL
----------

A typical ACL is expressed like this:

   **setaclmailbox** *mailbox* *id* *rights* [*id* *rights* ...]

where *mailbox* is the name of the mailbox to which the ACL is
applied, *id* is the ACI for the user or group for which the ACL
applies, and *rights* is a concatenated list of Access Rights from the
list below.

A real world example may look like this:

   setaclmailbox user/bovik/public bovik all group:users lrsp anyone lrs

Here are samples illustrated via output from the "listaclmailbox"
command in cyradm(8):

   localhost> **listaclmailbox tech/%**
   tech/Commits:
     group:tech lrswipkxtea
     anyone lrs
   tech/abuse:
     group:tech lrswipkxtecda
     anyone lrsp
   tech/security:
     anyone lrsp
     group:tech lrswipkxtecda
   tech/support:
     group:tech lrswipkxtecda
     anyone lrsp

   localhost> **listaclmailbox user/bovik/%**
   user/bovik/Drafts:
     bovik lrswipkxtecda
   user/bovik/Sent:
     bovik lrswipkxtecda
   user/bovik/Sent Items:
     bovik lrswipkxtecda
   user/bovik/Spam:
     anyone p
     bovik lrswipkxtecda
   user/bovik/Trash:
     bovik lrswipkxtecda


Access Rights
-------------

The following lists Access Rights that can be used in an Access
Control List entry.

l
   The user may see that the mailbox exists (**lookup**).

r
   The user may read the mailbox (**read**).

s
   Keep per-user seen state (i.e. modify the "Seen" flag)
   (**setseen**).

w
   The user may modify flags and keywords other than "Seen" and
   "Deleted". (**write**)

i
   The user may insert (append) new messages into the mailbox
   (**insert**).

p
   The user may send email to the submission address for the mailbox
   (**post**).

c
   [**deprecated**: see "k" right, below.]

k
   The user may create new mailboxes in this mailbox, delete the
   current mailbox, or rename the mailbox (**create**).

x
   The user may delete the mailbox itself. (**deletembox**)

t
   The user may store the "Deleted" flag.  In other words, delete
   messages.

e
   The user may Expunge messages which have the "Deleted" flag already
   set (**expunge**).

d
   This "legacy" right is treated by the software as a macro for "te"
   (**deletemsg** && **expunge**).

n
   The user may store annotations for a message (**annotatemsg**)

a
   The user may change the *Access Control Information* (ACI) on the
   mailbox (**administer**).

For a complete reference to Access Rights, please see Access Control
Lists Rights Reference

Rights are combined through concatenation.  Please see Combining
Access Rights


Access Control Defaults
-----------------------


Administrators
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regardless of the ACL on a mailbox, users who are listed in the
"admins" configuration option in imapd.conf(5) implicitly have the "l"
and "a" rights on all mailboxes.

Administrators can also see across domains which normal users cannot.

Warning:

  An admin user should not be a normal email account.


Mailbox owners
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The user who owns a mailbox folder has additional rights which are set
regardless of any additional ACLs. These are:

* **l** - lookup

* **k** - create subfolders

* **x** - delete this folder

* **a** - administer

These are set in "implicit_owner_rights" of imapd.conf(5).


Default
~~~~~~~

For all other mailboxes not owned by a user, any user accessing these
mailboxes have the following default privileges:

* **l** - lookup

* **r** - read contents

* **s** - seen

These are set in "defaultacl" of imapd.conf(5).


Initial ACLs for Newly Created Mailboxes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When a mailbox is created, its ACL starts off with a copy of the ACL
of its closest parent mailbox. When a user is created, the ACL on the
user's "INBOX" starts off with a single entry granting all rights to
the user. When a non-user mailbox is created and does not have a
parent, its ACL is initialized to the value of the "defaultacl" option
in imapd.conf(5).


Other Implicit Rights
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note that some rights are available implicitly, for example
'anonymous' always has 'p' on user INBOXes, and users always have "la"
rights on mailboxes within their INBOX hierarchy.


Access Control Identifier (ACI)
-------------------------------

The Access Control Identifier (ACI) part of an ACL entry specifies the
user or group for which the entry applies.  Group identifiers are
distinguished by the prefix "group:".  For example,
"group:accounting".

There are two special identifiers, "anonymous", and "anyone".  The
meaning of other identifiers usually depends on the authorization
mechanism being used.


"anonymous" and "anyone"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With any authorization mechanism, two special identifiers are defined.
The identifier "anonymous" refers to the anonymous, or unauthenticated
user. The identifier "anyone" refers to all users, including the
anonymous user.

Both "anonymous" and "anyone" may commonly be used with the **post**
right "p" to allow message insertion to mailboxes.


Negative Rights
---------------

Any of the above defined identifiers may be prefixed with a "-"
character. The associated rights are then removed from that
identifier. These are referred to as *negative rights*.


Calculating a Users' Rights
---------------------------

To calculate the set of rights granted to a user, the server first
calculates the union of all of the rights granted to the user and to
all groups the user is a member of. The server then calculates and
removes the union of all the negative rights granted to the user and
to all groups the user is a member of.

   anyone       lrsp
   fred         lwi
   -anonymous   s

The user "fred" will be granted the rights "lrswip" and the anonymous
user will be granted the rights "lrp".


Login Authentication
====================

This section discusses different types of authentication (ways of
logging in) that can be used with Cyrus IMAP.

The Cyrus IMAP server uses the Cyrus SASL library for authentication.
This section describes how to configure SASL with use with Cyrus
imapd. Please consult the *Cyrus SASL System Administrator's Guide*
for more detailed, up-to-date information.


Anonymous Login
---------------

Regardless of the SASL mechanism used by an individual connection, the
server may support anonymous login. If the "allowanonymouslogin"
option in imapd.conf(5) is turned on, then the server will permit
plaintext password logins using the user "anonymous" and any password.

Additionally, the server will enable any SASL mechanisms that allow
anonymous logins.


Plaintext Authentication
------------------------

The SASL library has several ways of verifying plaintext passwords.
Plaintext passwords are passed either by the IMAP "LOGIN" command or
by the SASL "PLAIN" mechanism (under a TLS layer).

* PAM

* GSSAPI: Plaintext passwords are verified by obtaining a ticket for
  the server's Kerberos identity, to protect against Kerberos server
  spoofing attacks.

* "/etc/passwd"

* "/etc/shadow": "sasl_auto_transition" automatically creates secrets
  for shared secret authentication when given a password.

The method of plaintext password verification is always through the
SASL library, even in the case of the internal LOGIN command. This is
to allow the SASL library to be the only source of authentication
information. You'll want to look at the "sasl_pwcheck_method" option
in the SASL documentation to understand how to configure a plaintext
password verifier for your system.

To disallow the use of plaintext passwords for authentication, you can
set "allowplaintext: no" in imapd.conf. This will still allow PLAIN
under TLS, but IMAP LOGIN commands will now fail.


Kerberos Logins
---------------

The Kerberos SASL mechanism supports the "GSSAPI" authentication
mechanism. The mechanism requires that a "keytab" file exist in the
location given in the "sasl_keytab" configuration option. The "keytab"
file must be readable by the Cyrus server and must contain a
"$service/$host@$realm" service key.  "$host" is the first component
of the server's host name, the FQDN or IP address (whatever the client
uses). "$realm" is the server's Kerberos realm. "$service" is name of
the service: "imap", "HTTP", "sieve".

The server will permit logins by identities in the local realm and
identities in the realms listed in the "loginrealms" option in
imapd.conf(5).

If the "loginuseacl" configuration option is turned on, than any
Kerberos identity that is granted the "a" right on the user's "INBOX"
is permitted to log in as that user.


Shared Secrets Logins
---------------------

The SCRAM mechanisms require the user and the server to share a secret
(generally a password) that can be used for comparison without
actually passing the password in the clear across the network. For
these mechanisms, you will need to supply a source of passwords, such
as the sasldb (which is described more fully in the *Cyrus SASL
distribution*).


Quotas
======

Quotas allow server administrators to limit resources used by
hierarchies of mailboxes on the server.


Working with Quotas
-------------------

Quotas are manipulated via these subcommands within the cyradm(8)
program:

   * setquota

   * listquota

   * listquotaroot


Monitor and Repair
------------------

Quotas may be monitored and repaired via the quota(8) command:

   * quota


Supported Quota Types
---------------------

The Cyrus IMAP server supports quotas on Storage (KB), Messages (#),
Folders (#) and Annotation Storage (KB).  These types each have their
own identifier:

   * STORAGE

   * MESSAGE

   * X-NUM-FOLDERS

   * X-ANNOTATION-STORAGE


Storage Quotas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Storage quotas are defined as the number of kilobytes (KB) of the
relevant **RFC 822** messages located within a quota root. Each copy
of a message is counted independently, even when the server can
conserve disk space use by making hard links to message files. The
additional disk space overhead used by mailbox index and cache files
is not charged against a quota. On servers with "delete_mode: delayed"
and/or "expunge_mode:delayed" space used by deleted mailboxes or
expunged messages are not charged against quota.


Numeric Quotas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Numeric Quotas are quite simply a limit on the number of a particular
class of object.  Cyrus IMAP currently supports quotas on the number
of messages and/or folders below a given quota root.


Quota Roots
-----------

Quotas are applied to quota roots, which can be at any level of the
mailbox hierarchy. Quota roots need not also be mailboxes.

Quotas on a quota root apply to the sum of the usage of any mailbox at
that level and any sub-mailboxes of that level that are not underneath
a quota root on a sub-hierarchy. This means that each mailbox is
limited by at most one quota root.

For example, if the mailboxes

   user/bovik
   user/bovik/list/imap
   user/bovik/list/info-cyrus
   user/bovik/saved
   user/bovik/todo

exist and the quota roots

   user/bovik
   user/bovik/list
   user/bovik/saved

exist, then the quota root "user/bovik" applies to the mailboxes
"user/bovik" and "user/bovik/todo"; the quota root "user/bovik/list"
applies to the mailboxes "user/bovik/list/imap" and "user/bovik/list
/info-cyrus"; and the quota root "user/bovik/saved" applies to the
mailbox "user/bovik/saved".

Quota roots are created automatically when they are mentioned in the
setquota command. Quota roots may not be deleted through the protocol,
see Removing Quota Roots for instructions on how to delete them.


Controlling Quota Behavior
--------------------------

How restrictive quotas will be may be tailored to the needs of
different sites, via the use of several settings in imapd.conf(5).

Please consult the Controlling Quota Behavior section of the Cyrus
IMAP Administrator Guide for complete details.


Mail Delivery Behavior
----------------------


Mailboxes Near Quota
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Normally, in order for a message to be *appended* into a mailbox, the
quota root for the mailbox must have enough unused storage that
appending the message will not cause the quota to go over limit.

Mail delivery (posting) is a special case. In order for a message to
be delivered to a mailbox, the quota root for the mailbox merely need
not already be over the limit *in the default configuration*.

As long as usage is not over the limit, new messages may be delivered
regardless of size, unless "lmtp_strict_quota: on" is set in
imapd.conf(5).  In that case, delivery of messages will be rejected
would such delivery exceed quota.

If a delivery puts the mailbox's usage over the quota, the server will
issue an alert notifying the user that usage is close to or over the
limit, permitting them to correct it. If delivery were not permitted
in this case, the user would have no practical way of knowing that
there was mail that could not be delivered.

Note:

  While the Cyrus IMAP server may from time to time issue alerts,
  there is great variability in how IMAP clients handle these.
  Further, such alerts are only visible to users *while they are
  connected*.Therefore, many sites find it preferable to install cron
  jobs which use the quota(8) command to produce periodic reports of
  users at or near quota, so administrators may nag them or so that
  warnings may be issued to users via some other mechanism.


Mailboxes Over Quota
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the usage is over the limit, mail delivery will fail with a
temporary error (LMTP error 452), unless
"lmtp_over_quota_perm_failure: on" is set in imapd.conf(5) in which
case a permanent error (LMTP error 552) will be returned.

A temporary error will *typically* cause the delivery system to
requeue the message and re-attempt delivery for a few days (permitting
the user time to notice and correct the problem) before returning the
mail to the sender.

Note:

  Such requeuing behaviour is controlled by the MTA (i.e. Sendmail,
  EXIM or Postfix) and as such is outside the purview of this
  document.


Quota Warnings Upon Select When User Has "d" Rights
---------------------------------------------------

When a user selects a mailbox whose quota root has usage that is close
to or over the limit and the user has "d" rights on the mailbox, the
server will issue an alert notifying the user that usage is close to
or over the limit. The threshold of usage at which the server will
issue quota warnings is set by the "quotawarnpercent" configuration
option.

The server only issues warnings when the user has "d" rights because
only users with "d" rights are capable of correcting the problem.


Quotas and Partitions
---------------------

Quota roots are independent of partitions. A single quota root can
apply to mailboxes in different partitions.


New Mail Notification
=====================

The Cyrus IMAP server comes with a notification daemon which supports
multiple mechanisms for notifying users of new mail. Notifications can
be configured to be sent upon normal delivery ("MAIL" class) and/or
sent as requested by a Sieve script ("SIEVE" class).

By default, both types of notifications are disabled. Notifications
are enabled by using one or both of the following configuration
options:

* the "mailnotifier" option selects the notifyd(8) method to use for
  "MAIL" class notifications

* the "sievenotifier" option selects the notifyd(8) method to use for
  "SIEVE" class notifications (when no method is specified by the
  Sieve action)


Partitions
==========

Partitions allow administrators to store different mailboxes in
different parts of the Unix filesystem.  This is intended to be used
to allow hierarchies of mailboxes to be spread across multiple disks.


Specifying Partitions with "create"
-----------------------------------

When an administrator creates a new mailbox, the name of the partition
for the mailbox may be specified using an optional second argument to
the "create" command.  Non-administrators are not permitted to specify
the partition of a mailbox.  If the partition is not specified, then
the mailbox inherits the partition of its most immediate parent
mailbox.  If the mailbox has no parent, it gets the partition
specified in the "defaultpartition" configuration option.

The optional second argument to the "create" command can usually be
given only when using a specialized Cyrus-aware administrative client
such as "cyradm".


Changing Partitions with "rename"
---------------------------------

An administrator may change the partition of a mailbox by using the
rename command with an optional third argument.  When a third argument
to rename is given, the first and second arguments can be the same;
this changes the partition of a mailbox without changing its name.  If
a third argument to rename is not given and the first argument is not
"INBOX", the partition of a mailbox does not change. If a third
argument to rename is not given and the first argument is "INBOX", the
newly created mailbox gets the same partition it would get from the
"create" command.


News
====

Cyrus has the ability to export Usenet via IMAP and/or export shared
IMAP mailboxes via an NNTP server which is included with Cyrus.


POP3 Server
===========

The Cyrus IMAP server software comes with a compatibility POP3 server.
Due to limitations in the POP3 protocol, the server can only access a
user's "INBOX" and only one instance of a POP3 server may exist for
any one user at any time.  While a POP3 server has a user's "INBOX"
open, expunge operations from any concurrent IMAP session will fail.

When Kerberos login authentication is being used, the POP3 server uses
the server identity "pop.host@realm" instead of "imap.host@realm",
where "host" is the first component of the server's host name and
"realm" is the server's Kerberos realm.


The syslog facility
===================

The Cyrus IMAP server software sends log messages to the "local6"
syslog facility.  The severity levels used are:

* **CRIT** - Critical errors which probably require prompt
  administrator action

* **ERR** - I/O errors, including failure to update quota usage. The
  syslog message includes the specific file and Unix error.

* **WARNING** - Protection mechanism failures, client inactivity
  timeouts

* **NOTICE** - Authentications, both successful and unsuccessful

* **INFO** - Mailbox openings, duplicate delivery suppression


Mail Directory Recovery
=======================

This section describes the various databases used by the Cyrus IMAP
server software and what can be done to recover from various
inconsistencies in these databases.


Reconstructing Mailbox Directories
----------------------------------

The largest database is the mailbox directories.  Each mailbox
directory contains the following files:

message files
   There is one file per message, containing the message in **RFC
   822** format.  Lines in the message are separated by CRLF, not just
   LF.  The file name of each message is the message's UID followed by
   a dot (.).

   In netnews newsgroups, the message files instead follow the format
   and naming conventions imposed by the netnews software.

"cyrus.header"
   This file contains a magic number and variable-length information
   about the mailbox itself.

"cyrus.index"
   This file contains fixed-length information about the mailbox
   itself and each message in the mailbox.

"cyrus.cache"
   This file contains variable-length information about each message
   in the mailbox.

"cyrus.seen"
   This file contains variable-length state information about each
   reader of the mailbox who has "s" permissions.

The "reconstruct" program can be used to recover from corruption in
mailbox directories.  If "reconstruct" can find existing header and
index files, it attempts to preserve any data in them that is not
derivable from the message files themselves.  The state "reconstruct"
attempts to preserve includes the flag names, flag state, and internal
date.  "Reconstruct" derives all other information from the message
files.

An administrator may recover from a damaged disk by restoring message
files from a backup and then running reconstruct to regenerate what it
can of the other files.

The "reconstruct" program does not adjust the quota usage recorded in
any quota root files.  After running reconstruct, it is advisable to
run "quota -f" (described below) in order to fix the quota root files.


Reconstructing the Mailboxes File
---------------------------------

Note:

  CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE

The mailboxes file in the configuration directory is the most critical
file in the entire Cyrus IMAP system.  It contains a sorted list of
each mailbox on the server, along with the mailboxes quota root and
ACL.

To reconstruct a corrupted mailboxes file, run the "reconstruct -m"
command.  The "reconstruct" program, when invoked with the "-m"
switch, scavenges and corrects whatever data it can find in the
existing mailboxes file.  It then scans all partitions listed in the
imapd.conf file for additional mailbox directories to put in the
mailboxes file.

The "cyrus.header" file in each mailbox directory stores a redundant
copy of the mailbox ACL, to be used as a backup when rebuilding the
mailboxes file.


Reconstructing Quota Roots
--------------------------

Note:

  The following instructions are valid where "quota_db: quotalegacy"
  is set in imapd.conf(5).  If your site uses a different quota DB
  type, then these steps do not apply.

The subdirectory "quota" of the configuration directory (specified in
the "configdirectory" configuration option) contains one file per
quota root, with the file name being the name of the quota root.
These files store the quota usage and limits of each of the quota
roots.

The "quota" program, when invoked with the "-f" switch, recalculates
the quota root of each mailbox and the quota usage of each quota root.


Removing Quota Roots
--------------------

To remove a quota root, remove the quota root's file.  Then run "quota
-f" to make the quota files consistent again.


Subscriptions
-------------

The subdirectory "user" of the configuration directory contains user
subscriptions.  There is one file per user, with a filename of the
userid followed by ".sub".  Each file contains a sorted list of
subscribed mailboxes.

There is no program to recover from damaged subscription files.  A
site may recover from lost subscription files by restoring from
backups.


Configuration Directory
=======================

Many objects in the configuration directory are discussed in the
Database Recovery section. This section documents two other
directories that reside in the configuration directory.


Log Directory
-------------

The subdirectory "log" under the configuration directory permits
administrators to keep protocol telemetry logs on a per-user basis.

If a subdirectory of "log" exists with the same name as a user, the
IMAP and POP3 servers will keep a telemetry log of protocol sessions
authenticating as that user.  The telemetry log is stored in the
subdirectory with a filename of the server process-id and starts with
the first command following authentication.


Proc Directory
--------------

The subdirectory "proc" under the configuration directory contains one
file per active server process.  The file name is the ASCII
representation of the process id and the file contains the following
tab-separated fields:

* hostname of the client

* login name of the user, if logged in

* selected mailbox, if a mailbox is selected

The file may contain arbitrary characters after the first newline
character.

The "proc" subdirectory is normally be cleaned out on server reboot.


Message Delivery
================

Mail transport agents such as Sendmail, Postfix, or Exim communicate
with the Cyrus server via LMTP (the Local Mail Transport Protocol)
implemented by the LMTP daemon.  This can be done either directly by
the MTA (prefered, for performance reasons) or via the "deliver" LMTP
client.


Local Mail Transfer Protocol (lmtp)
-----------------------------------

LMTP, the Local Mail Transfer Protocol, is a variant of SMTP design
for transferring mail to the final message store.  LMTP allows MTAs to
deliver "local" mail over a network.  This is an easy optimization so
that the IMAP server doesn't need to maintain a queue of messages or
run an MTA.

The Cyrus server implements LMTP via the "lmtpd" daemon.  LMTP can
either be used over a network via TCP or local via a UNIX domain
socket. There are security differences between these two alternatives;
read more below.

For final delivery via LMTP over a TCP socket, it is necessary to use
LMTP AUTH.  This is accomplished using SASL to authenticate the
delivering user.  If your mail server is performing delivery via LMTP
AUTH (that is, using a SASL mechanism), you will want their
authentication id to be an LMTP admins (either via the "admins"
imapd.conf option or via the "<service>_admins" option, typically
"lmtp_admins").

Alternatively you may deliver via LMTP to a unix domain socket, and
the connection will be preauthenticated as an administrative user (and
access control is accomplished by controlling access to the socket).

Note that if a user has a sieve script, the sieve script runs
authorized as *that* user, and the rights of the posting user are
ignored for the purposes of determining the outcome of the sieve
script.


Single Instance Store
---------------------

If a delivery attempt mentions several recipients (only possible if
the MTA is speaking LMTP to "lmtpd"), the server attempts to store as
few copies of a message as possible.  It will store one copy of the
message per partition, and create hard links for all other recipients
of the message.

Single instance store can be turned off by using the
"singleinstancestore" flag in the configuration file.


Duplicate Delivery Suppression
------------------------------

A message is considered a duplicate if two copies of a message with
the same message-id and the same envelope recipient are received.
Cyrus uses the duplicate delivery database to hold this information,
and it looks approximately 3 days back in the default install.

Duplicate delivery suppression can be turned off by using the
"duplicatesuppression" flag in the configuration file.


Sieve, a Mail Filtering Language
================================

Sieve is a mail filtering language that can filter mail into an
appropriate IMAP mailbox as it is delivered via lmtp.


Cyrus Murder, the IMAP Aggregator
=================================

Cyrus now supports the distribution of mailboxes across a number of
IMAP servers to allow for horizontal scalability.
