"Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email

Did you set up sslcertfile and sslkeyfile options properly in dovecot.conf?

Also keep in mind that the cert file might have to be compound, ie. your cert + intermediate + CA. And the key file must be without password protection.

I'm not sure. I copied and pasted the contents of the dovecot.conf file as listed here ~~[http://library.linode.com/email/postfix/dovecot-mysql-ubuntu-10.04-lucid#sphconfigure-dovecot" target="blank">](http://library.linode.com/email/postfix … re-dovecot">http://library.linode.com/email/postfix/dovecot-mysql-ubuntu-10.04-lucid#sph_configure-dovecot]( - as far as I can tell that is telling dovecot to find the certificate at /etc/ssl/certs/dovecot.pem

I've checked in /etc/ssl/certs/ and the dovecot.pem certificate exists. The key file mentioned in the above link also exists.

I've been trying to use the guide at ~~[https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Dovecot#AccessingfromOutside" target="blank">](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Dovec … om_Outside">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Dovecot#Accessingfrom_Outside]( but because there are conflicts between what is in that, and what I copied and pasted from the linode guide, I'm not sure what I need to do.

Could the problem merely be that I need to create a user on my linode with the same username as the username in my email address? The only user I have currently set up in linode is 'root'.

EDIT: RE your second paragraph, do you mean I need to tell the cert file to look for several certificates? I have to find/download an intermediate certificate and CA certificate and place them in the SSL folder on my linode?

Where did you get the dovecot.pem from? You need a cert tailored for your own domain, either self signed (at which Thunderbird will complain, but you can store permanent exception) or purchase one. If you do the latter, then yes you will probably have to cat your cert with your CA's intermediate and ca certs, and keep the key without password.

As for users, if you use PAM for authentication then you'll need a non-root user. The "user = root" config directive is for the user of the dovecot process, not the authenticated user(s). You adjust passdb and userdb sections of dovecot.conf.

AFAIK, distros include a fairly documented and commented dovecot.conf so I suggest you start with that one and adjust accordingly.

OK, I removed the password from the key file (using the instructions at ~~[http://chrisschuld.com/2008/08/removing-the-password-on-an-apache-ssl-certificate/" target="_blank">](http://chrisschuld.com/2008/08/removing … rtificate/">http://chrisschuld.com/2008/08/removing-the-password-on-an-apache-ssl-certificate/](. After I did this, Thunderbird was recognising the server.

I still had a problem logging in. This was because I ignored the part of ~~[http://library.linode.com/email/postfix/dovecot-mysql-ubuntu-10.04-lucid#sphsetting-up-domains-and-users" target="blank">](http://library.linode.com/email/postfix … -and-users">http://library.linode.com/email/postfix/dovecot-mysql-ubuntu-10.04-lucid#sph_setting-up-domains-and-users]( that told me:

> Given the possibility for virtual hosting a large number of virtual domains on a single mail system, the username portion of an email address (i.e. before the @ sign) is not sufficient to authenticate to the mail server. When email users authenticate to the server, they must supply their email clients with the entire email address created above as their username.

I was ignoring it because it was confusing being asked for the password for "david@djackmanson.com@hostname.example.com". But once I entered all that it let me in and I am now reading my mail in Thunderbird.

Thanks very much for your help and suggestions.

EDIT: For future reference, the dovecot.pem files were created by dovecot after I installed it by following the instructions in the guide I've linked to above. I checked the contents of the certificates using http://www.sslshopper.com/certificate-decoder.html and confirmed that they were showing the Fully Qualified Domain Name of my server.