Re: How to monitor IMAP protocol?

Hello again Benoit,  I will intersperse my answers within your 
questions/suggestions below....


On 5/1/23 21:47, Benoit TELLIER wrote:
> Hello Marc,
>
> The Spring server is definitly not my cup of tea but I will try helping.
>
>  => Which James release are you running exactly?
Good question! I don't see any way to get the server to report it's 
exact version or other identification numbers. The cli does not document 
a query for retrieving it. So the best I can report is what the package 
descriptor says when I downloaded it. - james-server-app-3.4.0-SNAPSHOT
>
>  => Just in case provide a James thread dump when the issue arise 
> (jstack PID)...
I placed a copy of the output on paste.opensuse.org - 
https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/5888be1d6c4d
>
> Also moder Spring versions uses Log4J 2 , whose configuration do not 
> follow the syntax shown here. CF 
> https://github.com/apache/james-project/blob/james-project-3.7.4/server/apps/spring-app/src/main/resources/log4j2.xml

Um I guess I am not following you, and am not sure what you are 
recommending me to do. Are you saying that the syntax I used in the 
log4j.properties file is wrong? I just took a "monkey see, monkey do" 
approach when I set up the log4j.properties file using the example that 
was given.

>
> Hope it helps...
It does, again thanks for helping me, much appreciated!    Marc...
>
> Best regards,
>
> Benoit TELLIER
>
> On 02/05/2023 11:15, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
>> Hi Benoit, and thanks a million for your reply.  Yes, I have used 
>> telnet to make a connection on both the imap and smtp ports that my 
>> Apache James email server is listening on. I have successfully 
>> simulated sending and receiving emails by manually typing in the 
>> appropriate commands with lots of joy! Seems to work OK when making 
>> telnet connections just fine.
>>
>> However, what I am seeing when using Thunderbird as an email client, 
>> is that when doing something multiple times, the connection and 
>> commands work for a little while then things freeze up. For example, 
>> when fetching emails from the imap service, I get a few emails and 
>> then it hangs up. Ditto for running filters, the filters run for a 
>> bit, move a few emails, then hangs up. I don't know what the magic 
>> is, for getting back on track reliably, either. Sometimes restarting 
>> James and/or Thunderbird does the trick, but more often it keeps on 
>> failing for awhile and when I come back later it is running OK again. 
>> (again for a little while) So I would like to see what is going on 
>> with the imap and smtp communication layer itself to see if I can get 
>> any ideas.
>>
>> I have looked at the Apache James log files also, of course, and no 
>> joy discovering anything useful yet. One thing I do note is that only 
>> the james-server.log and the wrapper.log files contain any 
>> information. There are other files created, such as an imapserver.log 
>> file, but it does not contain anything. I wonder if I have a 
>> misconfiguration somewhere that is not allowing logging info to be 
>> directed to these other files. I can't find any thing wrong with my 
>> configuration files either, so for now I have set that problem aside 
>> while I try to pursue the more serious problem of some kind of a 
>> spotty connection issue. Maybe getting those other log files working 
>> would provide me with the information I need to solve this?
>>
>> I also see in the two log files that do contain information, 
>> exception errors with walk-back stack traces, but those seem 
>> unrelated to what I am doing at the time. (I get a LOT of bots doing 
>> brute force attacks against my server and a lot of these exception 
>> errors seem to be related to those attacks.)
>>
>> I am using the Spring wiring for Apache James, and believe with log4j 
>> logging. I will show the relevant property setting from the 
>> log4j.properties files for the imap service. Why nothing is showing 
>> up in the imapserver.log file is above my pay grade to grok.
>>
>> log4j.appender.IMAPSERVER=org.apache.log4j.DailyRollingFileAppender
>> log4j.appender.IMAPSERVER.File=../log/imapserver.log
>> log4j.appender.IMAPSERVER.DatePattern='.'yyyy-MM-dd
>> log4j.appender.IMAPSERVER.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
>> log4j.appender.IMAPSERVER.layout.ConversionPattern=%-5p 
>> %d{HH:mm:ss,SSS} | %c | %m%n
>> ... more stuff not shown here
>> log4j.logger.james=DEBUG, CONS, FILE
>> log4j.logger=DEBUG, CONS, FILE
>> ... more stuff not shown here
>> log4j.logger.james.imapserver=DEBUG, IMAPSERVER
>>
>> HTH...  Marc
>>
>>
>> On 5/1/23 08:14, Benoit TELLIER wrote:
>>> Hello Mark
>>>
>>>  -> James should output error logs. Be it logback for Guice or Log4J 
>>> for spring
>>>  -> Our arsenal also have awesome metrics integrated wit Prometheux 
>>> stack (guice only) or in logs
>>>
>>> For your case, have you tried some commands yourself in telnet? I 
>>> suspect a connection problem, for instance firewall...
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Benoit
>>>
>>> On 01/05/2023 00:19, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
>>>> Hello, After doing a bit or reorganization of where the location of 
>>>> installation files for Apache James, and or some updates I received 
>>>> from Linux OpenSuSE 15.3 x64, something broke and I am now 
>>>> experiencing some behavioral issues with my Thunderbird client -
>>>>
>>>> Thunderbird - version 91.11.0 (64-bit)
>>>> Apache James - version 3.4
>>>>
>>>> For example, I cannot seem to move some emails out of my Inbox 
>>>> folder, and put them in another sub-folder. I don't see any error 
>>>> messages, either from Thunderbird itself, nor in any of the log 
>>>> files from the Apache James server. And the moved emails do 
>>>> disappears from the Inbox folder temporarily only to reappear back 
>>>> in the Inbox folder a little later. Another symptom that has show 
>>>> up is Thunderbird keeps reporting that it cannot save a copy of my 
>>>> draft emails while I am composing it.
>>>>
>>>> So my question is, what is the best way to monitor the IMAP 
>>>> protocol communication that is going on between my Thunderbird 
>>>> email client, and the Apache James server? Can I capture it via the 
>>>> log files for Apache James or must I learn how to use a low level 
>>>> network monitor such as Wireshark? If the latter, are there any 
>>>> gurus around to show me how to capture just the IMAP communication?
>>>>
>>>> As always, much appreciate any thoughts and advise and thanks for 
>>>> taking the time to help me!    Marc C
>>>
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