Quick Configuration

If you just want to get Dovecot running with typical configuration in a typical environment, this guide will help you.

TLDR; I Just Want Dovecot Running

Here is a very simple basic configuration with single vmail user to be placed in dovecot.conf.

TIP

Some distros split configuration under /etc/dovecot/conf.d/. This can be useful, but it is not required.

For a simple setup, a single dovecot.conf file is recommended.

You need to create group vmail and user vmail.

dovecot.conf

# Start new configs with the latest Dovecot version numbers here:
dovecot_config_version = 2.4.0
dovecot_storage_version = 2.4.0

# Enable wanted protocols:
protocols {
  imap = yes
  lmtp = yes
}

mail_home = /srv/mail/%{user}
mail_driver = sdbox
mail_path = ~/mail

mail_uid = vmail
mail_gid = vmail

# By default first_valid_uid is 500. If your vmail user's UID is smaller,
# you need to modify this:
#first_valid_uid = uid-number-of-vmail-user

namespace inbox {
  inbox = yes
  separator = /
}

# Authenticate as system users:
passdb pam {
}

ssl_server_cert_file = /etc/dovecot/ssl-cert.pem
ssl_server_key_file = /etc/dovecot/ssl-key.pem

Configuration File

Prebuilt packages usually install the configuration files into /etc/dovecot/. You'll find the correct path by running:

doveconf -n | head -n 1

It's a good idea to read through all the config files and see what settings you might want to change.

Installing From Sources

If you compiled and installed Dovecot from sources, Dovecot has installed an example configuration file in /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf

Split Configuration Files

The default configuration starts from dovecot.conf, which contains an !include conf.d/*.conf statement to read the rest of the configuration. The idea is that the settings are nicely grouped into different files to make it easier for new admins to scan through related settings. It doesn't matter which config file you add which setting.

In the production system it's often easier to just have a single dovecot.conf file, which you can create easily using:

doveconf -nP > dovecot.conf

Hints About Writing Configuration Files

• Usually it does not matter in which file you write the setting. You only need to be aware that later settings replace earlier ones. If you use the same section multiple times, the settings are merged together.

Authentication

The above example configures Dovecot to use PAM for system user authentication. See PAM authentication database for how to configure it.

A typical configuration with Linux would be to create /etc/pam.d/dovecot which contains:

auth      required        pam_unix.so
account   required        pam_unix.so

Virtual Users

If you're planning on using virtual users, it's easier to first create a simple passwd-like file to make sure that the authentication will work. Later when you know Dovecot is working, you can do it differently (see virtual users).

Run as your own non-root user:

echo "$USER:{PLAIN}password" > passwd
sudo mv passwd /etc/dovecot/

# If SELinux is enabled:
restorecon -v /etc/dovecot/users

You can (and should) replace the "password" with whatever password you wish to use, but don't use any important password here as we'll be logging in with insecure plaintext authentication until SSL is configured.

Switch to passwd-file authentication by replacing passdb pam in dovecot.conf with passdb passwd-file:

passdb passwd-file {
  passwd_file_path = /etc/dovecot/passwd
}

Verify with doveconf -n passdb that the output looks like above (and there are no other passdbs and no userdbs).

If you're using something else, see passdb and userdb.

Mail Location

You can let Dovecot do its automatic mail location detection, but if that doesn't work you can set the location manually. See Mailbox Root Autodetection.

TIP

It is recommended to use either Maildir or dbox as your mailbox format.

mbox is a deprecated format, and should only be used for legacy message access and not for new systems.

Maildir

For better performance you may want to set mbox_very_dirty_syncs = yes.

Client Workarounds

Check imap_client_workarounds and pop3_client_workarounds and see if you want to enable more of them than the defaults.

SSL and Plaintext Authentication

Configure SSL certificate and private key paths with ssl_server_cert_file and ssl_server_key_file settings.

An easy way to build a self-signed test certificate is using Dovecot's doc/mkcert.sh script. For more information see SSL configuration.

By default auth_allow_cleartext = no, which means that Dovecot will fail the authentication if the client doesn't use SSL (or use non-cleartext authentication mechanisms). This is recommended in most situations, since it prevents leaking passwords. However, if you don't offer SSL for some reason, you'll probably want to set auth_allow_cleartext = yes.

NFS

If you're using NFS or some other remote filesystem that's shared between multiple computers, you should read NFS.

Running

See running Dovecot and logging.