Re: How to monitor IMAP protocol?

Hello Marc,

3.4.0 is a rather old release already and is no longer actively 
maintained. Numerous bug had been fixed since then.

Thus I recommend you updating to 3.7.4.

Best regards,

Benoit TELLIER

On 03/05/2023 00:34, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
> 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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