Allow to extend mail_plugins via extra.conf

[santo74]

Summary

As per the documentation you shouldn't change the dovecot.conf file directly but instead put your modifications in a file extra.conf

However, this doesn't work when you need to extend the mail_plugins (see below for more details)

Motivation

Extending the mail_plugins variable is necessary when you want to make use of the dovecot virtual plugin, e.g. in order to define a virtual "All Mail" folder or any other virtual folder for that matter.

Right now, to get this working, you need to modify the dovecot.conf file directly which isn't in line with the recommendations because it can be overwritten after an update.

Additional context

Adding

mail_plugins = $mail_plugins virtual

in extra.conf should append the "virtual" plugin to the default list of plugins defined in dovecot.conf, but instead it results in the following error:

mailcowdockerized-dovecot-mailcow-1  | doveconf: Warning: /etc/dovecot/extra.conf line 2: Global setting mail_plugins won't change the setting inside an earlier filter at /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181 (if this is intentional, avoid this warning by moving the global setting before /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181)

mailcowdockerized-dovecot-mailcow-1  | doveconf: Warning: /etc/dovecot/extra.conf line 2: Global setting mail_plugins won't change the setting inside an earlier filter at /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181 (if this is intentional, avoid this warning by moving the global setting before /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181)

mailcowdockerized-dovecot-mailcow-1  | doveconf: Warning: /etc/dovecot/extra.conf line 2: Global setting mail_plugins won't change the setting inside an earlier filter at /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181 (if this is intentional, avoid this warning by moving the global setting before /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181)

mailcowdockerized-dovecot-mailcow-1  | doveconf: Warning: /etc/dovecot/extra.conf line 2: Global setting mail_plugins won't change the setting inside an earlier filter at /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181 (if this is intentional, avoid this warning by moving the global setting before /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181)

mailcowdockerized-dovecot-mailcow-1  | doveconf: Warning: /etc/dovecot/extra.conf line 2: Global setting mail_plugins won't change the setting inside an earlier filter at /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181 (if this is intentional, avoid this warning by moving the global setting before /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181)

mailcowdockerized-dovecot-mailcow-1  | doveconf: Warning: /etc/dovecot/extra.conf line 2: Global setting mail_plugins won't change the setting inside an earlier filter at /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181 (if this is intentional, avoid this warning by moving the global setting before /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf line 181

[DerLinkman]

That is actually more a bug then a enhancement as this should not behave like this.

[santo74]

Thanks for confirming the issue.
Any chance this will be fixed in the next release?

[DerLinkman]

Nope the next release is frozen already. January at earliest then