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