Difference between revisions of "Dovecot Help"

Revision as of 10:34, 13 February 2014

Dovecot

Understanding Dovecot 2.0.x Configuration Files

The primary dovecot configuration file has always been dovecot.conf with many users adding a local.conf to be included where they put their custom configurations. More recently dovecot now includes a directory of pre-configured configuration files, each having addressed a specific need. Once understood, this makes the process of configuring dovecot much easier for admins because it is no longer necessary to look up all of the syntax and parameters since they are already in their specific associated file.

First look in the dovecot.conf file and observe the following line:

!include conf.d/*.conf

This line tells dovecot to read though ALL of the files ending in .conf that are located in the new conf.d directory. You will note that the conf.d directory contains files ending in both .conf and .ext - and within the .conf files are many remarked out parameters (those preceded with #) and a few that are not remarked out. Any feature or configuration you wish to enable can be accomplished by removing the # character from infront of the parameter.

Understand that when you start dovecot, it first reads

• dovecot.conf

Which passes a configuration telling dovecot to read though

• conf.d/*.conf

And some of the configuration lines in those files call additional parameters in

• conf.d/*.ext

While these convenient, pre-written configuration files address most any need of dovecot by an admin, some admin may still choose to manually add configuration parameters. It is advised not to add them directly to dovecot.conf, but rather add this"

!include_try /etc/dovecot/local.conf

Which tells dovecot to also read local.conf for additional configuration parameters, but if local.conf doesn't exist, just ignore it's absence and proceed as normal.

conf.d configuration files

Dovecot version 2.0.x includes configuration files that are read through by dovecot on start. Dovecot will ignore all lines beginning with the # character (remarks). By default, very few of these configuration parameters are active, most are remarked out until you decide you need the feature and remove the # character.

The configuration files

• auth.conf
• director.conf
• logging.conf
• mail.conf
• master.conf
• ssl.conf
• lda.conf
• imap.conf
• lmtp.conf
• pop3.conf
• acl.conf
• plugin.conf
• quota.conf

Additional extensions

• auth-checkpassword.conf.ext
• auth-deny.conf.ext
• auth-ldap.conf.ext
• auth-master.conf.ext
• auth-passwdfile.conf.ext
• auth-sql.conf.ext
• auth-static.conf.ext
• auth-system.conf.ext
• auth-vpopmail.conf.ext

These are all located in the dovecot/conf.d directory. Minor changes in naming may occur between versions and distributions, however, they work the same way and serve the same purpose.

sample dovecot command line

command to debug user and mailbox or shared mailbox issues

doveadm acl debug
doveadm acl debug -u user@domain Public/mailbox

authenticate users against unix system accounts

authenticate users against virtual (non-unix system) accounts

hybrid of unix system accounts and virtual users

Dovecot supports defining multiple authentication databases, so that if the password doesn't match in the first database, it checks the next one. This can be useful if you want to easily support having both local system users in /etc/passwd and virtual users.

• source: Authentication/MultipleDatabases - Dovecot Wiki

resources

Dovecot Mail List: http://www.dovecot.org/mailinglists.html