Debug level

Introduction

Mailutils debugging output is controlled by a set of levels, each of which can be set independently of others. Each debug level consists of a category name, which identifies the part of Mailutils for which additional debugging is desired, and a level number, which tells Mailutils how verbose should its output be.

Valid debug levels are:

error

Displays error conditions which are normally not reported, but passed to the caller layers for handling.

trace0 through trace9

Ten levels of verbosity, trace0 producing less output, trace9 producing the maximum amount of output.

prot

Display network protocol interaction, where applicable.

Implementation and applicability of each level differs between various categories. The full list of categories is available in file libmailutils/diag/debcat in the Mailutils source tree. Most useful categories and levels implemented for them are discussed later in this article.

Syntax

Debug levels can be set either from the command line, by using the --debug-level option, or from the configuration file, via the /debug/level statement. In both cases, it is specified as a list of individual levels, delimited with semicolons. Each individual level can be specified as:

• !category

Disables all levels for the specified category.

• category

Enables all levels for the specified category.

• category.level

For this category, enables all levels from error to level, inclusive.

• category.=level

Enables only the given level for this category.

• category.!level

Disables all levels from error to level, inclusive, for this category.

• category.!=level

Disables only the given level for this category.

Additionally, a comma-separated list of level specifications is allowed after the dot. For example, the following specification:

acl.prot,!=trace9,!trace2

enables in category acl all levels, except trace9, trace0, trace1, and trace2.

BNF

The following specification in Backus-Naur form describes formally the Mailutils debug level:

 <debug-spec> ::= <level-spec> | <debug-level-list>
 <debug-level-list> ::= <debug-level> | <debug-level-list> ";" <debug-level>
 <debug-level> ::= <category> | "!" <category> |
                   <category> "." <level-list>
 <level-list> ::= <level-spec> | <level-list> "," <level-spec>
 <level-spec> ::=  <level> | <negate-level>
 <negate-level> ::= "!" <level>
 <level> ::= <level-number> | "=" <level-number>
 <level-number> ::= <number> | "error" | "trace0" | "trace1" | "trace2" | "trace3" |
                    "trace4" | "trace5" | "trace6" | "trace7" | "trace8" | "trace9" |
                    "prot"

Categories

acl

This category enables debugging of Access Control Lists. Available levels are:

error

As usual, displays errors, not directly reported otherwise.

trace0

Basic tracing of ACL processing.

trace9

Traces the process of matching the ACL conditions.

config

This debug level affects configuration parser and/or lexical analyzer. The following levels are supported:

trace0

Minimal information about configuration statements.

trace2

Trace lexical structure of the configuration files.

trace7

Trace execution of the configuration parser.

Due to its specific nature, this category cannot be enabled from the configuration file. A special hook is provided to facilitate debugging the configuration parser, namely, a pragmatic comment in form:

#debug=debug-level-list

causes debug-level-list to be parsed as described above. So, to force debugging of the configuration parser, one may add the following line at the very beginning of the configuration file:

#debug=config.trace7

mailbox

Operations over mailboxes. This module supports the following levels: error, trace0, trace1, and proto. The latter is used by remote mailbox support libraries.

auth

Enables debugging information about authentication and authorization. This category supports the following levels: error, trace0, trace1, and trace2.

In level trace0, user data are reported along with the data source they were obtained from. The output may look like this:

pop3d: source=system, name=gray, passwd=x, uid=120, gid=100, gecos=Sergey Poznyakoff, 
dir=/home/gray, shell=/bin/bash, mailbox=/var/mail/gray, quota=0, change_uid=1

In the trace1 level, additional flow traces are displayed.

In the level trace2, a detailed flow trace is displayed, which looks like:

pop3d: Trying generic...
pop3d: generic yields 38=Function not implemented
pop3d: Trying system...
pop3d: system yields 0=Success
pop3d: Trying generic...
pop3d: generic yields 4135=Authentication failed
pop3d: Trying system...
pop3d: system yields 0=Success

mailer

Debugs mailer operations. The following levels are supported:

error

Displays mild error conditions.

trace0

Traces mailer operations in general: displays what part of the message is being sent, etc.

trace6

When used together with prot, displays security-sensitive information (such as passwords, user keys, etc). in plaintext. By default, such information is replaced with asteriscs to reduce the possibility of the security compromise.

trace7

When used together with prot, displays the payload information as it is being sent. Payload is the actual message contents, i.e. the part of SMTP transaction that goes after the DATA command and which ends with a terminating dot line. Setting this level can generate huge amounts of information.

proto

For SMTP mailer: outputs transcripts of SMTP sessions.

Note: Unless in a very secure environment, it is advised to avoid using level settings such as mailer.proto or mailer (without explicit level part), because the resulting output tends to be extremely copious and reveals sender private and security-sensitive data. If you wish to trace SMTP session flow, use mailer.=proto or at least mailer.proto,!trace6.