vmail)¶

If Dovecot is generating SELinux AVC denials and mail delivery or retrieval is broken on a Fedora/RHEL system with SELinux enforcing, the /var/vmail directory tree likely has incorrect file contexts.

Symptoms¶

Thousands of AVC denials in /var/log/audit/audit.log for Dovecot processes
Denials reference var_t context on files under /var/vmail/
Mail delivery may fail silently; IMAP folders may appear empty or inaccessible

ausearch -m avc -ts recent shows denials like:

type=AVC msg=audit(...): avc: denied { write } for pid=... comm="dovecot" name="..." scontext=system_u:system_r:dovecot_t:s0 tcontext=system_u:object_r:var_t:s0

Why It Happens¶

SELinux requires files to have the correct security context for the process that accesses them. When Postfix/Dovecot are installed on a fresh system and /var/vmail is created manually (or by the mail stack installer), the directory may inherit the default var_t context from /var/ rather than the mail-specific mail_spool_t context Dovecot expects.

The correct context for the entire /var/vmail tree is mail_spool_t — including the tmp/ subdirectories inside each Maildir folder.

Do NOT apply dovecot_tmp_t to Maildir tmp/ directories

dovecot_tmp_t is for Dovecot's own process-level temp files, not for Maildir tmp/ folders. Postfix's virtual delivery agent writes to tmp/ when delivering new mail. Applying dovecot_tmp_t will block Postfix from delivering any mail, silently deferring all messages with Permission denied.

Fix¶

1. Check Current Context¶

ls -Zd /var/vmail/
ls -Z /var/vmail/example.com/user/
ls -Zd /var/vmail/example.com/user/tmp/

If you see var_t instead of mail_spool_t, the contexts need to be set. If you see dovecot_tmp_t on tmp/, that needs to be corrected too.

2. Define the Correct File Context Rule¶

One rule covers everything — including tmp/:

sudo semanage fcontext -a -t mail_spool_t "/var/vmail(/.*)?"

If you previously added a dovecot_tmp_t rule for tmp/ directories, remove it:

# Check for an erroneous dovecot_tmp_t rule
sudo semanage fcontext -l | grep vmail

# If you see one like "/var/vmail(/.*)*/tmp(/.*)?" with dovecot_tmp_t, delete it:
sudo semanage fcontext -d "/var/vmail(/.*)*/tmp(/.*)?"

3. Apply the Labels¶

sudo restorecon -Rv /var/vmail

This relabels all existing files. On a mail server with many users and messages, this may take a moment and will print every relabeled path.

4. Verify¶

ls -Zd /var/vmail/
ls -Zd /var/vmail/example.com/user/tmp/

Both should show mail_spool_t:

system_u:object_r:mail_spool_t:s0 /var/vmail/
system_u:object_r:mail_spool_t:s0 /var/vmail/example.com/user/tmp/

5. Flush Deferred Mail¶

If mail was queued while the context was wrong, flush it:

postqueue -f
postqueue -p   # should be empty shortly

6. Check That Denials Stopped¶

ausearch -m avc -ts recent | grep dovecot

No output = no new denials.

Variant: a Freshly-Rebuilt Box Left in Permissive Mode¶

If a server was rebuilt or migrated and came up Permissive (check getenforce), the symptom flips: mail works fine, but /var/log/audit/audit.log quietly fills with thousands of dovecot_t → var_t denials that would break IMAP/LMTP the instant you switch to Enforcing. The mailstore was created or rsync'd onto /var/vmail with no fcontext rule, so it defaulted to var_t.

Apply the relabel above first, then flip to Enforcing only after verifying zero new denials:

MARK=$(date +%H:%M:%S)
# ...deliver a test message + do an IMAP login...
ausearch -m avc -ts "$MARK" | grep -c denied   # expect 0
setenforce 1
sed -i 's/^SELINUX=permissive/SELINUX=enforcing/' /etc/selinux/config

Companion denial: a Postfix virtual-mailbox server that looks up recipients in MySQL also trips postfix_cleanup_t reading /etc/my.cnf* (mysqld_etc_t). Allow it with a small local module:

ausearch -m avc -c cleanup | audit2allow -M local_postfix_mysql
semodule -i local_postfix_mysql.pp

See also Inbound Spam Filtering — the SpamAssassin Bayes DB belongs under /var/lib/spamassassin (spamd_var_lib_t) for the same labeling reason.

Key Notes¶

One rule is enough — "/var/vmail(/.*)?" with mail_spool_t covers every file and directory under /var/vmail, including all tmp/ subdirectories.
semanage fcontext is persistent — the rules survive reboots and restorecon calls. You only need to run semanage once.
restorecon applies current rules to existing files — run it after any semanage change and any time you manually create directories.
New mail directories are labeled automatically — SELinux applies the registered semanage rules to any new files created under /var/vmail.
var_t context is the default for /var/ — any directory created under /var/ without a specific semanage rule will inherit var_t. This is almost never correct for service data directories.