Dovecot Core Settings

See Settings for list of all setting groups.

auth_anonymous_username

  • Default: anonymous

  • Values: String

This specifies the username to be used for users logging in with the ANONYMOUS SASL mechanism.

auth_cache_negative_ttl

  • Default: 1hour

  • Values: Time

This sets the time to live for negative hits (i.e., when the user is not found or there is a password mismatch).

The value 0 completely disables caching of these hits.

auth_cache_size

  • Default: 0

  • Values: Size

The authentication cache size (e.g., 10M).

The setting auth_cache_size = 0 disables use of the authentication cache.

auth_cache_ttl

  • Default: 1hour

  • Values: Time

This determines the time to live for cached data. After the TTL expires, the cached record is no longer used, unless the main database look-up returns internal failure.

auth_cache_verify_password_with_worker

New in version v2.2.34.

Warning

This feature doesn’t currently work correctly when the passdb lookup is done via auth-workers. The password is checked correctly, but all the passdb extra fields are lost.

The auth master process by default is responsible for the hash verifications. Setting this to yes moves the verification to auth-worker processes. This allows distributing the hash calculations to multiple CPU cores, which could make sense if strong hashes are used.

auth_debug

Enables all authentication debug logging (also enables auth_verbose). Passwords are logged as <hidden>.

auth_debug_passwords

This setting adjusts log verbosity. In the event of password mismatches, the passwords and the scheme used are logged so that the problem can be debugged.

Enabling this enables auth_debug as well.

auth_default_realm

  • Default: <empty>

This setting indicates the default realm/domain to use if none has been specified. The setting is used for both SASL realms and appending an @domain element to the username in plaintext logins.

auth_failure_delay

  • Default: 2secs

  • Values: Time

This is the delay before replying to failed authentication attempts.

This setting defines the interval for which the authentication process flushes all auth failures. Thus, this is the maximum interval a user may encounter.

auth_gssapi_hostname

  • Default: <empty>

This supplies the hostname to use in Generic Security Services API (GSSAPI) principal names.

The default is to use the name returned by gethostname().

Use "$ALL" (with the quotation marks) to allow all keytab entries.

auth_krb5_keytab

  • Default: <empty>

This specifies the Kerberos keytab to use for the GSSAPI mechanism.

If this is left undefined, the system default (usually /etc/krb5.keytab) will be used.

Note

You may need to set the auth service to run as root in order for this file to be readable.

auth_master_user_separator

  • Default: <empty>

If you want to allow master users to log in by specifying the master username within the normal username string (i.e., not using the SASL mechanism’s support for it), you can specify the separator character here.

Example:

auth_master_user_separator = *

auth_mechanisms

  • Default: plain

Here you can supply a space-separated list of the authentication mechanisms you wish to use.

Supported mechanisms:

  • plain

  • login

  • digest-md5

  • cram-md5

  • ntml

  • rpa

  • apop

  • anonymous

  • gssapi

  • otp

  • skey

  • gss-spnego

Example:

auth_mechanisms = plain login

auth_policy_check_after_auth

Do policy lookup after authentication is completed?

See auth_policy_server_url

auth_policy_check_before_auth

Do policy lookup before authentication is started?

See auth_policy_server_url

auth_policy_hash_mech

  • Default: sha256

  • Values: md4, md5, sha1, sha256, sha512

Hash mechanism to use for password.

See auth_policy_server_url .. todo:: Is this the full list?

auth_policy_hash_nonce

  • Default: <empty>

  • Values: String

Cluster-wide nonce to add to hash.

REQUIRED configuration when you want to use authentication policy.

Example Setting:

auth_policy_hash_nonce = <localized_random_string>

See auth_policy_server_url

auth_policy_log_only

Only log what the policy server response would do?

If yes, no request is made to the policy server.

See auth_policy_server_url

auth_policy_hash_truncate

How many bits to use from password hash when reporting to policy server.

See auth_policy_server_url

auth_policy_reject_on_fail

If policy request fails for some reason should users be rejected?

See auth_policy_server_url

auth_policy_report_after_auth

Report authentication result?

If no, there will be no report for the authentication result.

auth_policy_request_attributes

  • Default: login=%{requested_username} pwhash=%{hashed_password} remote=%{rip} device_id=%{client_id} protocol=%s

Request attributes specification.

Variables that can be used for this setting:

  • Auth variables.

  • %{hashed_password} - Truncated auth policy hash of username and password

  • %{requested_username} - Logged in user. Same as %{user}, except for master user logins the same as %{login_user}. (v2.2.34+)

See auth_policy_server_url

auth_policy_server_api_header

  • Default: <empty>

Header and value to add to request (for API authentication).

Note

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_authentication#Client_side

This can be used when you are using the weakforced policy server and the web listener password is “super”

$ echo -n wforce:super | base64
d2ZvcmNlOnN1cGVy

Then the correct value for auth_policy_server_api_header is

auth_policy_server_api_header = Authorization: Basic d2ZvcmNlOnN1cGVy

See auth_policy_server_url

auth_policy_server_timeout_msecs

Request timeout, in milliseconds.

auth_policy_server_url

  • Default: <empty>

URL of the policy server.

URL is appended with ?command=allow/report. If URL ends with &, the ? is not appended.

REQUIRED configuration when you want to use authentication policy.

Example Setting:

auth_policy_server_url = http://example.com:4001/

auth_proxy_self

  • Default: <empty>

If the destination for proxying matches any of the IP addresses listed here, proxying is not performed when proxy_maybe=yes is returned.

This parameter isn’t normally needed; its main use is if the destination IP address belongs to, for instance, a load-balancer rather than the server itself.

auth_realms

  • Default: <empty>

This setting supplies a space-separated list of realms for those SASL authentication mechanisms that need them. Realms are an integral part of Digest-MD5. You will need to specify realms you want to advertise to the client in the config file:

Example Setting:

auth_realms = example.com another.example.com foo

auth_socket_path

  • Default: auth-userdb

This setting gives the UNIX socket path to the master authentication server for finding users. It is usually not necessary nor advisable to change the default.

auth_ssl_require_client_cert

If yes, authentication fails when a valid SSL client certificate is not provided.

auth_ssl_username_from_cert

Setting this to “yes” indicates that the username should be taken from the client’s SSL certificate

Generally, this will be either commonName or x500UniqueIdentifier.

The text is looked up from subject DN’s specified field using OpenSSL’s X509_NAME_get_text_by_NID() function. By default the CommonName field is used. You can change the field with ssl_cert_username_field = name setting (parsed using OpenSSL’s OBJ_txt2nid() function). x500UniqueIdentifier is a common choice.

See ssl_cert_username_field

auth_stats

New in version v2.3.

If the setting auth_stats=yes is chosen, authentication statistics are added.

auth_use_winbind

By default, the NTLM mechanism is handled internally.

If yes, perform NTLM and GSS-SPNEGO authentication with Samba’s winbind daemon and ntlm_auth helper.

This option is useful when you need to authenticate users against a Windows domain (either AD or NT).

auth_username_chars

  • Default: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ01234567890.-_@

The list of the characters allowed in a username.

If the user-supplied username contains a character not listed here, login automatically fails.

This is an additional check to make sure the user can’t exploit any quote-escaping vulnerabilities that may be connected with SQL/LDAP databases.

If you want to allow all characters, leave the value empty.

auth_username_format

Formattting applied to username before querying the auth database.

You can use the standard variables here.

Examples:

  • %Lu - lowercases the username

  • %n - drops the domain if one was supplied

  • %n-AT-%d - changes the “@” symbol into “-AT-” before lookup

This translation is done after the changes specified with the auth_username_translation setting.

auth_username_translation

  • Default: <empty>

If set, performs username character translations before querying the auth database.

The value is a string formed of sets of from and to characters alternating. A value of #@/@ means that # and / will both be translated to the @ character.

auth_verbose

New in version v2.2.24.

Adjust log verbosity.

If yes, log unsuccessful authentication attempts and why they failed.

Explicitly setting auth_debug will override this setting.

auth_verbose_passwords

  • Default: no

  • Values: no, yes, plain or sha1

In case of password mismatches, log the attempted password. You can also truncate the logged password to n chars by appending :n (e.g. sha1:6).

Available transformations:

  • plain, yes: output plaintext password (NOT RECOMMENDED)

  • sha1: output SHA1 hashed password

auth_winbind_helper_path

This setting tells the system the path for Samba’s ntlm_auth helper binary.

Example Setting:

auth_winbind_helper_path = /usr/bin/ntlm_auth

auth_worker_max_count

Maximum number of dovecot-auth worker processes active.

The auth workers are used to execute blocking passdb and userdb queries (e.g., MySQL and PAM). They are automatically created and destroyed as necessary.

base_dir

  • Default: /var/run/dovecot/

The base directory in which Dovecot should store runtime data.

This can be used to override the base_dir determined at compile time.

config_cache_size

  • Default: 1 M

  • Values: Size

The maximum size of the in-memory configuration cache. The cache should be large enough to allow keeping the full, parsed Dovecot configuration in memory. The default is almost always large enough, unless your system has numerous large TLS certificates in the configuration.

debug_log_path

This indicates the log file to use for debug messages. The default is to use info_log_path for debug messages as well.

default_client_limit

The maximum number of simultaneous client connections per process for a service.

Once this number of connections is reached, the next incoming connection prompts spawning of another process.

This value can be overridden via the client_limit setting within service blocks.

default_idle_kill

  • Default: 1mins

  • Values: Time

If a process is idle after this much time has elapsed, it is notified that it should terminate itself if inactive.

This value can be overridden via the idle_kill setting within service blocks.

default_internal_group

  • Default: dovecot

Define the default internal group.

See default_internal_user

default_internal_user

  • Default: dovecot

Define the default internal user.

Unprivileged processes run under the ID of the internal user. This user should be distinct from the login user, to prevent login processes from disturbing other processes.

See default_internal_group

default_login_user

  • Default: dovenull

The user the login process should run as.

This is the least trusted user in Dovecot: this user should not have access to anything at all.

default_process_limit

The maximum number of processes that may exist for a service.

This value can be overridden via the process_limit setting within service blocks.

default_vsz_limit

  • Default: 256M

  • Values: Size

The default virtual memory size limit for service processes.

Designed to catch processes that leak memory so that they can be terminated before they use up all the available resources.

deliver_log_format

  • Default: msgid=%m: %$

  • Values: String

The format to use for logging mail deliveries.

Variables that can be used for this setting:

  • Global variables.

  • %$ - Delivery status message (e.g., saved to INBOX)

  • %{msgid} / %m - Message-ID

  • %{subject} / %s - Subject

  • %{from} / %f - From address

  • %{from_envelope} / %e : SMTP FROM envelope

  • %{size} / %p - Physical size

  • %{vsize} / %w - Virtual size

  • %{to_envelope} - RCPT TO envelope

  • %{delivery_time} - How many milliseconds to deliver the mail

  • %{session_time} - LMTP session duration, not including delivery_time

  • %{storage_id} - Backend-specific ID for mail, e.g. Maildir filename

Example Setting:

  deliver_log_format = stime=%{session_time} msgid=%m: %$


.. _setting-dict_db_config:

dict_db_config

  • Default: <empty>

  • Values: String

Points to a Berkeley DB config file. Equivalent to adding DB_CONFIG=/path to import_environment.

See https://docs.oracle.com/database/bdb181/html/bdb-sql/sql_db_config.html for more information.

Example setting:

dict_db_config=/etc/dovecot/berkeley.conf

director_flush_socket

  • Default: <empty>

The doveadm director flush command removes all user associations either from the given host or all hosts. All the existing connections will be kicked.

This setting points to a file path of a flush script that is automatically executed when the flush command is run.

Variables that can be used for this setting:

  • Global variables.

  • %{ip} / %i : IP address of the backend

  • %{host} / %h : Hostname of the backend

director_mail_servers

  • Default: <empty>

List of IPs or hostnames of all backend mail servers.

This list is used to bootstrap a Director ring; backend hosts can be dynamically added to a running ring via the doveadm commands.

director_max_parallel_kicks

The maximum number of concurrent kicks allowed in the Director ring.

director_max_parallel_moves

How many concurrent user moves are allowed in the Director ring?

This default can be overridden with doveadm director flush --max-parallel parameter.

director_output_buffer_size

  • Default: 10M

  • Values: Size

This allows configuring the max buffer size for outgoing connections. Previously it was hardcoded to 10 MB, which wasn’t necessarily enough for very busy directors. If the max buffer size is reached, the connection is disconnected (and reconnected).

director_ping_idle_timeout

  • Default: 30secs

  • Values: Time

Minimum time to wait for a reply to PING that was sent to another director before disconnecting (and reconnecting). This setting is used when there’s otherwise no input coming from the connection.

director_ping_max_timeout

  • Default: 1mins

  • Values: Time

Maximum time to wait for a reply to PING that was sent to another director before disconnecting (and reconnecting). This setting is used when the other director keeps sending input, but among it is no PONG reply.

director_servers

  • Default: <empty>

A space-separated list of IP addresses or hostnames for all Director servers, including the machine on which the setting is made.

Ports can be specified after a colon (in IP:port form) if something other than the default port is to be used (the default port is the one used by the Director service’s inet_listener).

This list is used to bootstrap a Director ring; directors can be dynamically added to a running ring via the doveadm commands.

director_user_expire

  • Default: 15mins

  • Values: Time

How long to keep routing information in the Director ring after a user has no more active connections.

director_user_kick_delay

  • Default: 2secs

  • Values: Time

How long to wait after a user has been kicked from the Director ring before that user can log in to the new server. This timeout should allow time for the old backend to complete all of the user’s existing processes.

director_username_hash

How the username is translated before being hashed. For example, one might want to use %Ln if the user can log in with or without @domain and %Ld if mailboxes are shared within the domain.

Variables that can be used for this setting:

disable_plaintext_auth

If yes, disables the LOGIN command and all other plaintext authentication unless SSL/TLS is used (LOGINDISABLED capability).

dotlock_use_excl

If yes, rely on O_EXCL to work when creating dotlock files. NFS has supported O_EXCL since version 3, so yes should be safe to use by default.

doveadm_allowed_commands

  • Default: ALL

Lists the commands that the client may use with the doveadm server. The setting ALL allows all commands.

doveadm_api_key

  • Default: <empty>

Set an API key for use of the HTTP API for the doveadm server.

If set, the key must be included in the HTTP request (via X-API-Key header) base64 encoded.

doveadm_http_rawlog_dir

  • Default: <empty>

Directory where doveadm stores HTTP rawlogs.

doveadm_password

  • Default: <empty>

The doveadm client and server must have a shared secret. This setting configures the doveadm server’s password, used for client authentication.

Because it grants access to users’ mailboxes, it must be kept secret.

doveadm_port

The destination port to be used for the next doveadm proxying hop.

A value of 0 means that proxying is not in use.

doveadm_socket_path

  • Default: doveadm-server

The UNIX socket or host (host:port syntax is allowed) for connecting to the doveadm server.

doveadm_ssl

New in version 2.3.9.

  • Default: no

  • Values: no, ssl, starttls

doveadm_username

  • Default: doveadm

The username for authentication to the doveadm service.

doveadm_worker_count

If the worker count set here is non-zero, mail commands are run via this many connections to the doveadm service.

If 0, commands are run directly in the same process.

dsync_alt_char

  • Default: _

When the source and destination mailbox formats are different, it’s possible for a mailbox name to exist on one source that isn’t valid for the destination. Any invalid characters are replaced with the character indicated here.

dsync_commit_msgs_interval

New in version v2.2.30.

Dsync will commit this number of messages incrementally, to avoid huge transactions that fail.

dsync_features

New in version v2.2.26.

  • Default: <empty>

This setting specifies features and workarounds that can be used with dsync. Options are specified in this setting via a space-separated list.

Available options:

  • empty-header-workaround: Workaround for servers (e.g. Zimbra) that sometimes send FETCH replies containing no headers.

dsync_features = empty-header-workaround

dsync_hashed_headers

New in version v2.2.33.

  • Default: Date Message-ID

Which email headers are used in incremental syncing for checking whether the local email matches the remote email.

This list should only include headers that can be efficiently downloaded from the remote server.

dsync_remote_cmd

  • Default: ssh -l%{login} %{host} doveadm dsync-server -u%u -U

Command to replicate when the mail_replica plug-in is used.

Variables that can be used for this setting:

first_valid_gid

This setting and last_valid_gid specify the valid GID range for users.

A user whose primary GID is outside this range is not allowed to log in.

If the user belongs to any supplementary groups, the corresponding IDs are not set.

See also last_valid_gid.

first_valid_uid

This setting and last_valid_uid specify the valid UID range for users.

A user whose UID is outside this range is not allowed to log in.

See also last_valid_uid.

haproxy_timeout

  • Default: 3secs

  • Values: Time

When to abort the HAProxy connection when no complete header has been received. The value is given in seconds.

haproxy_trusted_networks

  • Default: <empty>

A space-separated list of trusted network ranges for HAProxy connections.

Connections from networks outside these ranges to ports that are configured for HAProxy are aborted immediately.

hostname

  • Default: <empty>

The hostname to be used in email messages sent out by the local delivery agent (such as the Message-ID: header) and in LMTP replies.

The default is the system’s real hostname@domain.tld.

imap_capability

  • Default: <empty>

Override the IMAP CAPABILITY response.

If the value begins with the + character, the capabilities listed here are added at the end of the default string.

imap_capability = +XFOO XBAR

imap_client_workarounds

  • Default: <empty>

Workarounds for various IMAP client bugs can be enabled here. The list is space-separated.

The following values are currently supported:

delay-newmail:

EXISTS/RECENT new-mail notifications are sent only in replies to NOOP and CHECK commands. Some clients, such as pre-2.1 versions of OSX Mail, ignore them otherwise, and, worse, Outlook Express may report that the message is no longer on the server (note that the workaround does not help for OE6 if synchronization is set to Headers Only).

tb-extra-mailbox-sep:

Because LAYOUT=fs (mbox and dbox) confuses Thunderbird, causing extra / suffixes to mailbox names, Dovecot can be told to ignore the superfluous character instead of judging the mailbox name to be invalid.

tb-lsub-flags:

Without this workaround, Thunderbird doesn’t immediately recognize that LSUB replies with LAYOUT=fs aren’t selectable, and users may receive pop-ups with not selectable errors. Showing Noselect flags for these replies (e.g., in mbox use) causes them to be grayed out.

imap_fetch_failure

  • Default: disconnect-immediately

Behavior when FETCH fails due to some internal error:

disconnect-immediately:

The FETCH is aborted immediately and the IMAP client is disconnected.

disconnect-after:

The FETCH runs for all the requested mails returning as much data as possible. The client is finally disconnected without a tagged reply.

no-after:

Same as disconnect-after, but tagged NO reply is sent instead of disconnecting the client.

If the client attempts to FETCH the same failed mail more than once, the client is disconnected.

This is to avoid clients from going into infinite loops trying to FETCH a broken mail.

imap_hibernate_timeout

  • Default: 0

  • Values: Size

How long to wait while the client is in IDLE state before moving the connection to the hibernate process, to save on memory use, and close the existing IMAP process. If nothing happens for this long while client is IDLEing, move the connection to imap-hibernate process and close the old imap process. This saves memory, because connections use very little memory in imap-hibernate process. The downside is that recreating the imap process back uses some resources.

Example Setting:

imap_hibernate_timeout = 0

imap_id_log

  • Default: <empty>

The ID fields sent by the client that are output to the log.

Using * as the value denotes that everything available should be sent.

Example Setting:

imap_id_log =

imap_id_retain

New in version v2.2.29.

When proxying IMAP connections to other hosts, forward the IMAP ID command provided by the client?

Example Setting:

imap_id_retain=yes

imap_id_send

  • Default: name *

Which ID field names and values to send to clients.

Using * as the value makes Dovecot use the default value.

There are currently defaults for the following fields:

  • name: Name of distributed package (Default: Dovecot)

  • version: Dovecot version

  • os: OS name reported by uname syscall (similar to uname -s output)

  • os-version: OS version reported by uname syscall (similar to uname -r output)

  • support-url: Support webpage set in Dovecot distribution (Default: http://www.dovecot.org/)

  • support-email: Support email set in Dovecot distribution (Default: dovecot@dovecot.org)

  • revision: Short commit hash of Dovecot git source tree HEAD (same as the commit hash reported in dovecot --version)

    New in version 2.3.10: revision field.

Example Setting:

imap_id_send = "name" * "version" * support-url http://example.com/

imap_idle_notify_interval

  • Default: 2mins

  • Values: Time

The amount of time to wait between “OK Still here” untagged IMAP responses when the client is in IDLE operation.

Example Setting:

imap_idle_notify_interval = 2 mins

imap_literal_minus

Enable IMAP LITERAL- extension (replaces LITERAL+)?

imap_logout_format

  • Default: in=%i out=%o deleted=%{deleted} expunged=%{expunged} trashed=%{trashed} hdr_count=%{fetch_hdr_count} hdr_bytes=%{fetch_hdr_bytes} body_count=%{fetch_body_count} body_bytes=%{fetch_body_bytes}

  • Values: String

This setting specifies the IMAP logout format string. Supported variables are:

  • Mail user variables.

  • %{input} / %i - total number of bytes read from client

  • %{output} / %o - total number of bytes sent to client

  • %{fetch_hdr_count} - Number of mails with mail header data sent to client

  • %{fetch_hdr_bytes} - Number of bytes with mail header data sent to client

  • %{fetch_body_count} - Number of mails with mail body data sent to client

  • %{fetch_body_bytes} - Number of bytes with mail body data sent to client

  • %{deleted} - Number of mails where client added Deleted flag

  • %{expunged} - Number of mails that client expunged, which does not include automatically expunged mails

  • %{autoexpunged} - Number of mails that were automatically expunged after client disconnected

  • %{trashed} - Number of mails that client copied/moved to the special_use=Trash mailbox.

  • %{appended} - Number of mails saved during the session

The following multi-line example, which is the default, uses some of the most common variables:

imap_logout_format = in=%i out=%o del=%{deleted} expunged=%{expunged} \
 trashed=%{trashed} hdr_count=%{fetch_hdr_count} \
 hdr_bytes=%{fetch_hdr_bytes} body_count=%{fetch_body_count} \
 body_bytes=%{fetch_body_bytes}

imap_max_line_length

  • Default: 64k

  • Values: Size

Maximum IMAP command line length. Some clients generate very long command lines with huge mailboxes, so you may need to raise this if you get Too long argument or IMAP command line too large errors often.

Example Setting:

imap_max_line_length = 64k

imap_metadata

Dovecot supports the IMAP METADATA extension (RFC 5464), which allows per-mailbox, per-user data to be stored and accessed via IMAP commands. Set this parameter’s value to “yes” if you wish to activate the IMAP METADATA commands.

If activated, a dictionary needs to be configured, via the mail_attribute_dict setting.

Example Setting:

# Store METADATA information within user's Maildir directory
mail_attribute_dict = file:%h/Maildir/dovecot-attributes

protocol imap
{
  imap_metadata = yes
}

imap_urlauth_host

  • Default: <empty>

Specifies the hosts allowed in URLAUTH URLs sent by clients.

* allows all. An empty value disables checking.

imap_urlauth_logout_format

  • Default: in=%i out=%o

  • Values: String

Specifies the logout format used with the URLAUTH extension in IMAP operation. NOTE: This setting is currently not actually used.

Variables allowed:

  • %i: Total number of bytes read from the client

  • %o: Total number of bytes sent to the client

Example Setting:

imap_urlauth_logout_format = in=%i out=%o

imap_urlauth_port

  • Default: 143

The port is used with the URLAUTH extension in IMAP operation.

Example Setting:

imap_urlauth_port = 143

imapc_cmd_timeout

  • Default: 5mins

  • Values: Time

How long to wait for a reply to an IMAP command sent to a remote IMAP server before disconnecting and retrying.

This parameter is used in dsync-based migration of mail from the remote system.

imapc_connection_retry_count

How many times to retry connection against a remote IMAP server?

imapc_connection_retry_interval

How long to wait between retries against a remote IMAP server?

imapc_features

  • Default: <empty>

This setting provides a space-separated list of features and workarounds that can be enabled for dsync-based migration of mail from a remote IMAP server.

Supported imapc_features:

  • rfc822.size - Allow passing through message sizes using FETCH RFC822.SIZE

  • fetch-headers - Allow fetching specific message headers using FETCH BODY.PEEK[HEADER.FIELDS (..)], may give a significant performance improvement

imapc_host

  • Default: <empty>

The remote IMAP server to use for dsync-based migration of mail (which allows preservation of the IMAP UIDs etc.).

Example:

imapc_host = imap.example.com

imapc_list_prefix

  • Default: <empty>

In dsync-based migration, only mailboxes under this prefix on the remote system are accessed.

Example, for a source IMAP server that uses an INBOX namespace prefix:

imapc_list_prefix = INBOX/

imapc_master_user

  • Default: <empty>

If you are using master users for dsync-based migration of mail, this is the master user for the source IMAP server.

To authenticate as a master user but use a separate login user, the following configuration should be employed, where the credentials are represented by masteruser and masteruser-secret:

imapc_user = %u
imapc_master_user = masteruser
imapc_password = masteruser-secret

Mail user variables can be used.

See also imapc_password. See also imapc_user.

imapc_max_idle_time

  • Default: 29mins

  • Values: Time

Send a command to the source IMAP server as a keepalove after no other command has been sent for this amount of time.

Dovecot will send either “NOOP” or “DONE” to the source IMAP server.

imapc_max_line_length

  • Default: 0

  • Values: Size

The maximum line length to accept from the remote IMAP server.

This setting is used to limit maximum memory usage.

A value of 0 indicates no maximum.

imapc_password

  • Default: <empty>

The password used in the login to the source IMAP server for migration of mail via dsync.

If using master users, this setting will be the password of the master user.

See also imapc_master_user.

See also imapc_user.

imapc_port

  • Default: 143

Port used for connection to the source IMAP server in dsync-based migration of mail.

imapc_rawlog_dir

  • Default: <empty>

Directory location to store raw IMAP protocol traffic logs used in dsync-based migration of mail..

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Rawlog

imapc_sasl_mechanisms

  • Default: <empty>

The SASL mechanisms to use for authentication when connection to a remote IMAP server during dsync-based migration of mail.

The first one advertised by the IMAP sever is used.

PLAIN authentication will be used by default.

Example value:

imapc_sasl_mechanisms = external plain login

imapc_ssl

  • Default: no

  • Values: yes, no, or imaps

To enable SSL for dsync-based migration of mail, use imapc_ssl = imaps to specify the protocol for connection to the source IMAP server.

imapc_ssl_verify

Require SSL verification of remote IMAP account certificate during dsync-based migration of mail.

Verification may be disabled during testing, but should be enabled during production use.

imapc_user

  • Default: <empty>

The user identity to be used for performing a regular IMAP LOGIN to the source IMAP server in dsync-based migration of mail.

Mail user variables can be used.

See also imapc_master_user. See also imapc_password.

import_environment

  • Default: TZ CORE_OUTOFMEM CORE_ERROR

A list of environment variables, space-separated, that are preserved and passed to all child processes.

The list is space-separated, and it can include key = value pairs for assigning variables the desired value upon Dovecot startup.

info_log_path

The log file to use for informational messages. The default is to use log_path for informational messages too.

instance_name

  • Default: dovecot

For multi-instance setups, supply the unique name of this Dovecot instance.

This simplifies use of commands such as doveadm: rather than using -c and the config path, you can use the -i flag with the relevant instance name.

last_valid_gid

This setting and first_valid_gid specify the valid GID range for users.

A user whose primary GID is outside this range is not allowed to log in.

0 means there is no explicit last GID.

If the user belongs to any supplementary groups, the corresponding IDs are not set.

See also first_valid_gid.

last_valid_uid

This setting and first_valid_uid specify the valid UID range for users.

0 means there is no explicit last UID.

A user whose UID is outside this range is not allowed to log in.

See also last_valid_uid.

lda_mailbox_autocreate

Should LDA create a non-existent mailbox automatically when attempting to save a mail message?

lda_mailbox_autosubscribe

Should automatically created mailboxes be subscribed to?

lda_original_recipient_header

  • Default: <empty>

The header from which the original recipient address (used in the SMTP RCPT TO: address) is obtained if that address is not available elsewhere.

Example:

lda_original_recipient_header = X-Original-To

libexec_dir

  • Default: /usr/libexec/dovecot

The directory from which you execute commands via doveadm-exec.

listen

  • Default: *, ::

A comma-separated list of IP addresses or hostnames on which external network connections will be handled.

* listens at all IPv4 interfaces, and :: listens at all IPv6 interfaces.

Example:

listen = 127.0.0.1, 192.168.0.1

lmtp_add_received_header

New in version v2.3.9.

Controls if “Received:” header should be added to delivered mails.

lmtp_address_translate

Removed in version 2.3.0.

  • Default: <empty>

  • Values: String

Allows rewriting LMTP recipient address. Supports only %u, %d, %n variables.

Example:

lmtp_address_translate = %n@otherdomain.com

lmtp_client_workarounds

New in version v2.3.9.

  • Default: <empty>

Configures the list of active workarounds for LMTP client bugs. The list is space-separated. Supported workaround identifiers are:

  • whitespace-before-path - Allow one or more spaces or tabs between ‘MAIL FROM:’ and path and between ‘RCPT TO:’ and path.

  • mailbox-for-path - Allow using bare Mailbox syntax (i.e., without <…>) instead of full path syntax.

lmtp_hdr_delivery_address

  • Default: final

The recipient address to use for the Delivered-To: header and the relevant Received: header.

Options:

  • alternative: Address from the RCPT TO OCRPT parameter

  • final: Address from the RCPT TO command

  • none: No address (always used for messages with multiple recipients)

lmtp_proxy

Proxy to other LMTP/SMTP servers?

Proxy destination is determined via passdb lookup parameters.

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/PasswordDatabase/ExtraFields/Proxy

lmtp_proxy_rawlog_dir

  • Default: <empty>

Directory location to store raw LMTP proxy protocol traffic logs.

Mail service user variables can be used. However, because LMTP session starts without a user, all user-specific variables expand to empty.

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Rawlog

lmtp_rawlog_dir

  • Default: <empty>

Directory location to store raw LMTP protocol traffic logs.

Mail service user variables can be used. However, because LMTP session starts without a user, all user-specific variables expand to empty.

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Rawlog

lmtp_rcpt_check_quota

Should quota be verified before a reply to RCPT TO is issued?

If active, this creates a small amount of extra overhead so it is disabled by default.

lmtp_save_to_detail_mailbox

If the recipient address includes a detail element / role (as in user+detail format), save the message to the detail mailbox.

lmtp_user_concurrency_limit

Limit the number of concurrent deliveries to a single user to this maximum value.

It is useful if one user is receiving numerous mail messages and thereby causing delays to other deliveries.

lock_method

  • Default: fcntl

  • Values: fcntl, flock, dotlock

  • dotlock: mailboxname.lock file created by almost all software when writing to mboxes. This grants the writer an exclusive lock over the mbox, so it’s usually not used while reading the mbox so that other processes can also read it at the same time. So while using a dotlock typically prevents actual mailbox corruption, it doesn’t protect against read errors if mailbox is modified while a process is reading.

  • flock: flock() system call is quite commonly used for both read and write locking. The read lock allows multiple processes to obtain a read lock for the mbox, so it works well for reading as well. The one downside to it is that it doesn’t work if mailboxes are stored in NFS.

  • fcntl: Very similar to flock, also commonly used by software. In some systems this fcntl() system call is compatible with flock(), but in other systems it’s not, so you shouldn’t rely on it. fcntl works with NFS if you’re using lockd daemon in both NFS server and client.

Specify the locking method to use for index files by setting lock_method to one of the above values.

log_core_filter

  • Default: <empty>

Crash after logging a matching event. The syntax of the filter is described in Global filter syntax.

For example

log_core_filter = category=error

will crash any time an error is logged, which can be useful for debugging.

log_debug

  • Default: <empty>

Filter to specify what debug logging to enable. The syntax of the filter is described in Global filter syntax.

This will eventually replace mail_debug and auth_debug settings.

See auth_debug

See mail_debug

log_path

  • Default: syslog

Specify the log file to use for error messages here.

Options:

  • syslog: Log to syslog

  • /dev/stderr: Log to stderr

If you don’t want to use syslog, or if you just can’t find the Dovecot’s error logs, you can make Dovecot log elsewhere as well:

log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log

If you don’t want errors, info, and debug logs all in one file, specify info_log_path or debug_log_path as well:

log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log
info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot-info.log

log_timestamp

  • Default: %b %d %H:%M:%S

  • Values: String

The prefix for each line written to the log file.

% variables are in strftime(3) format.

login_access_sockets

  • Default: <empty>

For blacklisting or whitelisting networks, supply a space-separated list of login-access-check sockets for this setting.

Dovecot login processes can check via UNIX socket whether login should be allowed for the incoming connection.

login_greeting

  • Default: Dovecot ready.

  • Values: String

The greeting message displayed to clients.

Variables:

login_log_format

  • Default: %$: %s

  • Values: String

The formatting of login log messages.

Variables:

See login_log_format_elements

login_log_format_elements

  • Default: user=<%u> method=%m rip=%r lip=%l mpid=%e %c

  • Values: String

A space-separated list of elements of the login log formatting.

Elements that have a non-empty value are joined together to form a comma-separated string.

Login variables can be used.

Variable

Long name

Description

%u

user

full username (e.g. user@domain)

%n

username

user part in user@domain, same as %u if there’s no domain

%d

domain

domain part in user@domain, empty if user with no domain

%h

home

Expands to HOME environment. Usually means it’s empty.

%p

pid

PID of the current process

%m

mech

authentication mechanism e.g. PLAIN

%a

lport

local port

%b

rport

remote port

%c

secured

“secured” string with SSL, TLS and localhost connections. Otherwise empty.

%k

ssl_security

SSL protocol and cipher information, e.g. “TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)”

%e

mail_pid

Mail process (imap/pop3) PID that handles the post-login connection

real_rip

Same as %{rip}, except in proxy setups contains the remote proxy’s IP instead of the client’s IP

real_lip

Same as %{lip}, except in proxy setups contains the local proxy’s IP instead of the remote proxy’s IP (v2.2+)

real_rport

Similar to %{real_rip} except for port instead of IP (v2.2+)

real_lport

Similar to %{real_lip} except for port instead of IP (v2.2+)

orig_user

Same as %{user}, except using the original username the client sent before any changes by auth process (v2.2.6+, v2.2.13+ for auth)

orig_username

Same as %{username}, except using the original username (v2.2.6+, v2.2.13+ for auth)

orig_domain

Same as %{domain}, except using the original username (v2.2.6+, v2.2.13+ for auth)

auth_user

SASL authentication ID (e.g. if master user login is done, this contains the master username). If username changes during authentication, this value contains the original username. Otherwise the same as %{user}. (v2.2.11+)

auth_username

user part in %{auth_user} (v2.2.11+)

auth_domain

domain part in %{auth_user} (v2.2.11+)

listener

Expands to the socket listener name as specified in config file (v2.2.19+)

passdb:<name>

Return passdb extra field “name”. %{passdb:name:default} returns “default” if “name” doesn’t exist (not returned if name exists but is empty) (v2.2.19+)

login_plugin_dir

  • Default: /usr/lib64/dovecot/login

Location of the login plugin directory.

login_plugins

  • Default: <empty>

List of plugins to load for IMAP and POP3 login processes.

login_proxy_timeout

New in version v2.3.12.

Timeout for login proxy failures. The timeout covers everything from the time connection is started until a successful login reply is received. This can be overwritten by proxy_timeout passdb extra field.

login_proxy_max_reconnects

New in version v2.3.12.

  • Default:3

How many times login proxy will attempt to reconnect to destination server on connection failures (3 reconnects = total 4 connection attempts). Reconnecting is done for most types of failures, except for regular authentication failures. There is a 1 second delay between each reconnection attempt. If login_proxy_timeout is reached, further reconnects aren’t attempted.

login_proxy_max_disconnect_delay

  • Default:0

Specify the delayed disconnection interval of clients when there is a server mass-disconnect.

For prevention of load spikes when a backend server fails or is restarted, disconnection is spread over the amount of time indicated.

0 disables the delay.

login_proxy_notify_path

  • Default: proxy-notify

Path to proxy-notify pipe.

The default is OK and doesn’t need to be change.

Login variables can be used.

login_source_ips

A list of hosts / IP addresses that are used in a round-robin manner for the source IP address when the proxy creates TCP connections.

To allow sharing of the same configuration across multiple servers, you may use a ? character at the start of the value to indicate that only the listed addresses that exist on the current server should be used.

Example Setting:

login_source_ips = ?proxy-sources.example.com

login_trusted_networks

  • Default: <empty>

A space-separated list of trusted network ranges.

This setting is used for a few different purposes, but most importantly it allows the client connection to tell the server what the original client’s IP address was. This original client IP address is then used for logging and authentication checks.

Plaintext authentication is always allowed for trusted networks (disable_plaintext_auth is ignored).

The details of how this setting works depends on the used protocol:

IMAP:

  • ID command can be used to override:

    • Session ID

    • Client IP and port (%{rip}, %{rport})

    • Server IP and port (%{lip}, %{lport})

  • forward_* fields can be sent to auth process’s passdb lookup

  • The trust is always checked against the connecting IP address. Except if HAProxy is used, then the original client IP address is used.

POP3:

  • XCLIENT command can be used to override:

    • Session ID

    • Client IP and port (%{rip}, %{rport})

  • forward_* fields can be sent to auth process’s passdb lookup

  • The trust is always checked against the connecting IP address. Except if HAProxy is used, then the original client IP address is used.

ManageSieve:

  • XCLIENT command can be used to override:

    • Session ID

    • Client IP and port (%{rip}, %{rport})

  • The trust is always checked against the connecting IP address. Except if HAProxy is used, then the original client IP address is used.

Submission:

  • XCLIENT command can be used to override:

    • Session ID

    • Client IP and port (%{rip}, %{rport})

    • HELO - Overrides what the client sent earlier in the EHLO command

    • LOGIN - Currently unused

    • PROTO - Currently unused

  • forward_* fields can be sent to auth process’s passdb lookup

  • The trust is always checked against the connecting IP address. Except if HAProxy is used, then the original client IP address is used.

LMTP:

  • XCLIENT command can be used to override:

    • Session ID

    • Client IP and port (%{rip}, %{rport})

    • HELO - Overrides what the client sent earlier in the LHLO command

    • LOGIN - Currently unused

    • PROTO - Currently unused

    • TIMEOUT (overrides mail_max_lock_timeout)

  • The trust is always checked against the connecting IP address. Except if HAProxy is used, then the original client IP address is used.

mail_access_groups

  • Default: <empty>

Supplementary groups that are granted access for mail processes.

Typically, these are used to set up access to shared mailboxes.

Note: it may be dangerous to set these up if users can create symlinks. For example: if the “mail” group is chosen here, ln -s /var/mail ~/mail/var could allow a user to delete others’ mailboxes, or ln -s /secret/shared/box ~/mail/mybox would allow reading others’ mail).

mail_always_cache_fields

  • Default: <empty>

The fields specified here are always added to cache when saving mails, even if the client never accesses these fields.

See Mail Cache Settings for details and for the list of fields.

See mail_cache_fields

See mail_never_cache_fields

mail_attachment_detection_options

  • Default: <empty>

Settings to control adding $HasAttachment or $HasNoAttachment keywords. By default, all MIME parts with Content-Disposition=attachment, or inlines with filename parameter are considered attachments.

To enable this feature, this setting needs at least one option specified.

Options:

  • add-flags - Attachments are detected and marked during save. Detection is done also during fetch if it can be done without extra disk IO and with minimal CPU cost. This means that either both mime.parts and imap.bodystructure has to be in cache already, or if mail body is opened in any case.

    New in version v2.3.13.

  • add-flags-on-save - Deprecated alias for add-flags. Before v2.3.13 the detection was done only during save, not during fetch.

    Deprecated since version v2.3.13.

  • add-flags no-flags-on-fetch - Flags are added during save, but not during fetch. This option will likely be removed in a later release.

    New in version v2.3.13.

  • content-type=type|!type - Include or exclude given content type. Including will only negate an exclusion (e.g. content-type=!foo/* content-type=foo/bar).

  • exclude-inlined - Do not consider any attachment with disposition inlined.

mail_attachment_dir

  • Default: <empty>

The directory in which to store mail attachments.

With sdbox and mdbox, mail attachments can be saved to external files, which also allows single-instance storage of them.

If no value is specified, attachment saving to external files is disabled.

Mail user variables can be used.

mail_attachment_fs

  • Default: sis posix

Which filesystem type to use for saving attachments.

Options:

  • posix: No single-instance storage done (this option might simplify the filesystem’s own de-duplication operations)

  • sis posix: SiS with immediate byte-by-byte comparison during saving

  • sis-queue posix: Sis with delayed comparison and de-duplication

Mail user variables can be used.

mail_attachment_hash

  • Default: %{sha1}

  • Values: %{md4}, %{md5}, %{sha1}, %{sha256}, %{sha512}, %{size}

The hash format to use in attachment filenames when saving attachments externally.

Variables and additional text can be included in this string.

The syntax allows truncation of any variable. For example %{sha256:80} will return only the first 80 bits of the SHA256 output.

mail_attachment_min_size

  • Default: 128k

  • Values: Size

Attachments below this size will not be saved externally.

mail_attribute_dict

  • Default: <empty>

The dictionary to be used for key=value mailbox attributes.

This is used by the URLAUTH and METADATA extensions.

Mail user variables can be used.

Example Setting:

mail_attribute_dict = file:%h/dovecot-attributes

See imap_metadata

mail_cache_fields

  • Default: flags

The default list of fields that are added to cache if no other caching decisions exist yet. This setting is used only when creating the initial INBOX for the user. Other folders get their defaults from the INBOX.

See Mail Cache Settings for details and for the list of fields.

See mail_always_cache_fields

See mail_never_cache_fields

mail_cache_min_mail_count

Only update cache file when the mailbox contains at least this many messages.

With a setting other than 0, you can optimize behavior for fewer disk writes at the cost of more disk reads.

mail_chroot

  • Default: <empty>

The default chroot directory for mail processes.

This chroots all users globally into the same directory.

Mail service user variables can be used.

mail_debug

This setting adjusts log verbosity. It enables mail-process debugging. This can help you figure out the reason if Dovecot isn’t finding certain mail messages.

mail_fsync

  • Default: optimized

Specify when to use fsync() or fdatasync() calls. Using fsync waits until the data is written to disk before it continues, which is used to prevent corruption or data loss in case of server crashes. This setting applies to mail files and index files on the filesystem. This setting doesn’t apply to object storage operations.

Options:

  • always: Use fsync after all disk writes. Recommended for NFS to make sure there aren’t any delayed write()s.

  • optimized: Use fsync after important disk writes. For example cache file writes aren’t fsynced, because they can be regenerated if necessary.

  • never: Never fsync any disk writes. This provides the best performance, but risks losing recently saved emails in case of a crash with most mailbox formats.

    With obox format this option is recommended to be used, because it affects only the local metacache operations. If a server crashes, the existing metacache is treated as potentially corrupted and isn’t used.

mail_full_filesystem_access

Allow full filesystem access to clients?

If enabled, no access checks are performed other than what the operating system does for the active UID/GID.

This setting works with both Maildir and mbox formats, allowing you to prefix mailboxes’ names with /path/ or ~user/ indicators.

mail_gid

  • Default: <empty>

The system group ID used for accessing mail messages.

Can be either numeric IDs or group names.

If you use multiple values here, userdb can override them by returning the gid field.

See mail_uid

mail_home

  • Default: <empty>

The are various possible ways of specifying this parameter and mail_location. The following example is one option when home=/var/vmail/domain/user/ and mail=/var/vmail/domain/user/mail/:

mail_home = /var/vmail/%d/%n
mail_location = maildir:~/mail

Mail service user variables can be used.

See mail_location

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/QuickConfiguration

mail_location

  • Default: <empty>

This setting indicates the location for users’ mailboxes.

For an empty value, Dovecot attempts to find the mailboxes automatically (looking at ~/Maildir, /var/mail/username, ~/mail, and ~/Mail, in that order). However, auto-detection commonly fails for users whose mail directory hasn’t yet been created, so you should explicitly state the full location here, if possible.

Mail user variables can be used.

mail_log_prefix

  • Default: %s(%u)<%{pid}><%{session}>:

You can specify a log prefix for mail processes here.

Example setting:

mail_log_prefix = "%s(%u): "

Mail service user variables can be used.

mail_max_keyword_length

The maximum length allowed for a mail keyword name.

Compliance is enforced only during attempts to create new keywords

mail_max_lock_timeout

  • Default: 0

This value is used as a timeout for tempfailing mail connections. It can be set globally, for application to all Dovecot services, but is normally better to set it in only certain protocol blocks. You may wish to set a value for this for LMTP and LDA while leaving it at the global default of 0 for IMAP and POP3 connections, which tolerate tempfailing less well.

mail_max_userip_connections

The maximum number of IMAP connections allowed for a user from each IP address. This setting is checked only by backends, not proxies. Note that for this to work, any username changes must be done already by passdb lookup (not by userdb lookup).

Unique users are identified via case-sensitive comparison.

mail_never_cache_fields

  • Default: imap.envelope

List of fields that should never be cached.

This should generally never include anything other than imap.envelope, which isn’t needed because it can be generated from the cached header fields.

See Mail Cache Settings for details and for the list of fields.

See mail_cache_fields

See mail_always_cache_fields

mail_nfs_index

When mail-index files exist in NFS storage and you’re running a multi-server setup that you wish to flush NFS caches, this can be set to yes (in this case, make sure also to use the settings).

mmap_disable=yes and fsync_disable=no

See mail_fsync See mmap_disable

mail_nfs_storage

Flush NFS caches whenever it is necessasry to do so.

This setting should only be enabled if you are using multiple servers on NFS.

mail_plugin_dir

  • Default: /usr/lib64/dovecot

The directory in which to search for Dovecot mail plugins.

See mail_plugins

mail_plugins

  • Default: <empty>

A spece-separated list of plugins to load.

See mail_plugin_dir

mail_prefetch_count

The maximum number of messages to keep open and prefetch to memory.

0 indicates no limit should be applied.

Behavior is dependent on the operating system and mailbox format.

mail_privileged_group

  • Default: <empty>

This group is enabled temporarily for privileged operations. Currently, this is used only with the INBOX when either its initial creation or dotlocking fails. Typically, this is set to mail to give access to /var/mail.

You can give Dovecot access to mail group by setting:

mail_privileged_group = mail

mail_save_crlf

Save message with CR+LF line endings?

Messages are normally saved with LF line endings.

Enabling this makes saving messages less CPU-intensive, especially with the sendfile() system call used in Linux and FreeBSD. However, enabling comes at the cost of slightly increased disk I/O, which could decrease the speed in some deployments.

mail_server_admin

  • Default: <empty>

The method for contacting the server administrator.

Per the METADATA standard (RFC 5464), this value MUST be a URI (e.g., a mailto: or tel: URL), but that requirement is not enforced by Dovecot.

This value is accessible to authenticated users through the /shared/admin IMAP METADATA server entry.

mail_server_admin = mailto:admin@example.com

See imap_metadata

mail_server_comment

  • Default: <empty>

A comment or note that is associated with the server.

This value is accessible to authenticated users through the /shared/comment IMAP METADATA server entry.

See imap_metadata

mail_shared_explicit_inbox

This setting determines whether a shared INBOX should be visible as “shared/user” or as “shared/user/INBOX” instead.

mail_sort_max_read_count

The number of slow mail accesses an IMAP SORT can perform before it returns failure to the client.

On failure, the untagged SORT reply is retuned, but it is likely not correct.

The IMAP reply returned to the client is:

NO [LIMIT] Requested sort would have taken too long.

As a special case with the obox format when doing a SORT (ARRIVAL), the SORT will always return OK. When it reaches the slow access limit, it falls back to using the save-date (instead of received-date) for the rest of the mails. Often this produces mostly the same result, especially in the INBOX.

mail_temp_dir

  • Default: /tmp

The directory in which LDA/LMTP will temporarily store incoming message data that is above 128kB in size.

Mail user variables can be used.

mail_temp_scan_interval

  • Default: 1week

  • Values: Time

How often Dovecot scans for and deletes stale temporary files.

These files are usually created only if Dovecot crashes when saving a message.

A value of 0 means this scan never occurs.

mail_uid

  • Default: <empty>

This setting indicates the system userid used for accessing mail messages. If you use multiple values here, userdb can override them by returning UID or GID fields. You can use either numeric IDs or usernames here.

See mail_gid

mail_vsize_bg_after_count

Controls transitioning mail size determination to the background instead of synchronously during the delivery process.

After this many messages have been opened, the system allows a background indexer-worker process to perform quota calculations in the background.

This may happen when mail messages do not have their virtual sizes cached.

When indexing is occuring in the background, explicit quota size queries return an internal error and mail deliveries are assumed to succeed.

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/Quota

mailbox_idle_check_interval

  • Default: 30secs

  • Values: Time

The minimum time between checks for new mail/other changes when a mailbox is in the IMAP IDLE state.

mailbox_list_index

These indexes live at the root of user’s mailbox storage, and allows quick lookup of mailbox status instead of needing to open all mailbox indexes separately.

Enabling this optimizes the server reply to IMAP STATUS commands, which are commonly issues. This also needs to be enabled if you wish to enable the IMAP NOTIFY extension.

mailbox_list_index_include_inbox

Should INBOX be kept up-to-date in the mailbox list index?

Disabled by default as most mailbox accesses will open INBOX anyway.

See mailbox_list_index

mailbox_list_index_very_dirty_syncs

If enabled, assume that the mailbox list index is fully updated so that stat() will not be run for mailbox files/directories.

maildir_broken_filename_sizes

Maildir only: If enabled, do not obtain a mail message’s physical size from the S=<size> data in the Maildir filename except when recalculating the Maildir++ quota.

maildir_empty_new

Maildir only: Should mail messages always be moved from the new/ directory to cur/, even when the \Recent flags aren’t being reset?

maildir_stat_dirs

Maildir only: If enabled, don’t include directories in a LIST response that begin with a dot.

maildir_very_dirty_syncs

Maildir: If disabled, Dovecot is assumed to be the only MUA that accesses Maildir directly, so the cur/ directory is scanned only when its mtime changes unexpectedly or when the mail cannot otherwise be found.

master_user_separator

  • Default: <empty>

The separator to use to enable master users to login by specifying the master username within the normal username string (i.e., not using the SASL mechanism’s master support).

Example:

# Allows master login of the format <username>*<masteruser>
# E.g. if user = foo, and master_user = muser,
#   login username = foo*muser
master_user_separator = *

mbox_dirty_syncs

mbox only: Enable optimized mbox syncing?

For larger mbox files, it can take a long time to determine what has changed when the file is altered unexpectedly. Since the change in most cases consists solely of newly appended mail, Dovecot can operate more quickly if it starts off by simply reading the new messages, then falls back to reading the entire mbox file if something elsewhere in it isn’t as expected.

See mbox_very_dirty_syncs

mbox_dotlock_change_timeout

  • Default: 2 mins

  • Values: Time

mbox only: Override a lockfile after this amount of time if a dot-lock exists but the mailbox hasn’t been modified in any way.

mbox_lazy_writes

mbox only: If enabled, mbox headers are not written until a full write sync is performed (with the EXPUNGE and CHECK commands and during closing of the mailbox).

Enabling this setting is especially useful with POP3, in which clients often delete all mail messages.

One negative consequence of enabling this setting is that the changes aren’t immediately visible to other MUAs.

mbox_lock_timeout

  • Default: 5mins

  • Values: Time

mbox only: The maximum time to wait for all locks to be released before aborting.

mbox_md5

  • Default: apop3d

mbox only: The mail-header selection algorithm to use for MD5 POP3 UIDLs when the setting pop3_uidl_format=%m is applied.

See pop3_uidl_format

mbox_min_index_size

  • Default: 0

mbox only: For mboxes smaller than this size, index files are not written.

If an index file already exists, it gets read but not updated.

The default is OK and doesn’t need to be change.

mbox_read_locks

  • Default: fcntl

  • Values: dotlock, dotlock_try, fcntl, flock, lockf

mbox only: Specify which locking method(s) to use for locking the mbox files during reading.

To use multiple values, separate them with spaces.

There are at least four different ways to lock a mbox:

  • dotlock: mailboxname.lock file created by almost all software when writing to mboxes. This grants the writer an exclusive lock over the mbox, so it’s usually not used while reading the mbox so that other processes can also read it at the same time. So while using a dotlock typically prevents actual mailbox corruption, it doesn’t protect against read errors if mailbox is modified while a process is reading.

  • flock: flock() system call is quite commonly used for both read and write locking. The read lock allows multiple processes to obtain a read lock for the mbox, so it works well for reading as well. The one downside to it is that it doesn’t work if mailboxes are stored in NFS.

  • fcntl: Very similar to flock, also commonly used by software. In some systems this fcntl() system call is compatible with flock(), but in other systems it’s not, so you shouldn’t rely on it. fcntl works with NFS if you’re using lockd daemon in both NFS server and client.

  • lockf: POSIX lockf() locking. Because it allows creating only exclusive locks, it’s somewhat useless so Dovecot doesn’t support it. With Linux lockf() is internally compatible with fcntl() locks, but again you shouldn’t rely on this.

mbox_very_dirty_syncs

mbox only: If enabled, Dovecot performs the optimizations from mbox_dirty_syncs also for the IMAP SELECT, EXAMINE, EXPUNGE, and CHECK commands.

If set, this option overrides mbox_dirty_syncs.

See mbox_dirty_syncs

mbox_write_locks

  • Default: dotlock fcntl

  • Values: dotlock, dotlock_try, fcntl, flock, lockf

mbox only: Specify which locking method(s) to use for locking the mbox files during writing.

To use multiple values, separate them with spaces.

There are at least four different ways to lock a mbox:

  • dotlock: mailboxname.lock file created by almost all software when writing to mboxes. This grants the writer an exclusive lock over the mbox, so it’s usually not used while reading the mbox so that other processes can also read it at the same time. So while using a dotlock typically prevents actual mailbox corruption, it doesn’t protect against read errors if mailbox is modified while a process is reading.

  • flock: flock() system call is quite commonly used for both read and write locking. The read lock allows multiple processes to obtain a read lock for the mbox, so it works well for reading as well. The one downside to it is that it doesn’t work if mailboxes are stored in NFS.

  • fcntl: Very similar to flock, also commonly used by software. In some systems this fcntl() system call is compatible with flock(), but in other systems it’s not, so you shouldn’t rely on it. fcntl works with NFS if you’re using lockd daemon in both NFS server and client.

  • lockf: POSIX lockf() locking. Because it allows creating only exclusive locks, it’s somewhat useless so Dovecot doesn’t support it. With Linux lockf() is internally compatible with fcntl() locks, but again you shouldn’t rely on this.

mdbox_preallocate_space

mdbox only: If enabled, preallocate space for newly created files.

In creation of new mdbox files, their size is immediately preallocated as mdbox_rotate_size.

This setting currently works only in Linux with certain filesystems (ext4 and xfs).

See mdbox_rotate_size

mdbox_rotate_interval

  • Default: 0

  • Values: Size

mdbox only: The maximum age the dbox file may reach before it’s rotated.

0 means there is no age-based rotation.

mdbox_rotate_size

  • Default: 10M

  • Values: Size

mdbox only: The maximum size the dbox file may reach before it is rotated.

mmap_disable

Disable mmap() usage?

This must be disabled if you store indexes to shared filesystems (i.e., if you use NFS or a clustered filesystem).

namespace

Declares new namespace, see Namespaces for more details.

old_stats_carbon_interval

New in version v2.2.27.

  • Default: 30secs

  • Values: Time

The interval at which to send stats to the Carbon server.

See old_stats_carbon_server

old_stats_carbon_name

New in version v2.2.27.

  • Default: <empty>

The identifier to use for this node when exporting stats to the Carbon server.

Do not use dots (.) in this setting.

Example:

stats_carbon_name = hostname

See old_stats_carbon_server

old_stats_carbon_server

New in version v2.2.27.

  • Default: <empty>

Send server statistics to an external Carbon server.

Format is <hostname | ip>:<port>.

Example Setting:

127.0.0.1:2003

old_stats_command_min_time

  • Default: 1min

  • Values: Time

Command-level stats older than this value will be cleared once the memory limit in old_stats_memory_limit is reached.

See old_stats_memory_limit

old_stats_domain_min_time

  • Default: 12hours

  • Values: Time

Domain-level stats older than this value will be cleared once the memory limit in old_stats_memory_limit is reached.

See old_stats_memory_limit

old_stats_ip_min_time

  • Default: 12hours

  • Values: Time

IP Address-level stats older than this value will be cleared once the memory limit in old_stats_memory_limit is reached.

See old_stats_memory_limit

old_stats_memory_limit

  • Default: 16M

  • Values: Size

The maximum amount of memory that can be used by the old stats process.

old_stats_session_min_time

  • Default: 15mins

  • Values: Time

Session-level stats older than this value will be cleared once the memory limit in old_stats_memory_limit is reached.

See old_stats_memory_limit

old_stats_user_min_time

  • Default: 1hour

  • Values: Time

User-level stats older than this value will be cleared once the memory limit in old_stats_memory_limit is reached.

See old_stats_memory_limit

pop3_client_workarounds

  • Default: <empty>

Workarounds for various POP3 client bugs can be enabled here. The list is space-separated.

The following values are currently supported:

oe-ns-eoh:

Because Outlook Express and Netscape Mail expect an end-of-headers line, this option sends one explicitly if none has been sent.

outlook-no-nuls:

Because Outlook and Outlook Express hang if messages contain NUL characters, this setting replaces each of them with a 0x80 character.

pop3_delete_type

  • Default: < >

  • Values: flag or expunge

Action to perform in POP3 when mails are deleted and the pop3_deleted_flag is enabled.

See pop3_deleted_flag

pop3_deleted_flag

  • Default: <empty>

Change POP3 behavior so a user cannot permanently delete messages via POP3.

Instead, the messages are hidden from POP3 sessions by setting an IMAP flag, which Dovecot will filter out in future listings.

To enable this behavior, enter the name of the IMAP keyword to use. Note: this keyword will visibile on IMAP clients for the message.

Example:

pop3_deleted_flag = $POP3Deleted

See pop3_delete_type

pop3_enable_last

Enable support for the POP3 LAST command.

While this command has been removed from newer POP3 specs, some clients still attempt to use it. Enabling this causes the RSET command to clear all Seen flags that messages may have.

pop3_fast_size_lookups

If enabled, use the virtual message size of the message for POP3 replies if available.

POP3 requires message sizes to be listed as if they contain CR+LF line breaks; however, many POP3 servers instead return the sizes with pure line feeds (LFs), for the sake of speed.

If enabled, use the virtual message size if available, before falling back to the incorrect, physical size (used by many POP3 servers) if judging the correct size would have required opening the message to determine.

pop3_lock_session

If enabled, only one POP3 session may exist for any single user.

pop3_logout_format

  • Default: top=%t/%p, retr=%r/%b, del=%d/%m, size=%s

  • Values: String

The string to display to the client on POP3 logout (informational only).

Variables available:

  • Mail user variables.

  • %{input} / %i: Bytes read from the client

  • %{output} / %o: Bytes sent to the client

  • %{top_count} / %t: Number of TOP commands run

  • %{top_bytes} / %p: Bytes sent to the client because of TOP commands

  • %{retr_count} / %r: Number of RETR commands run

  • %{retr_bytes} / %b: Bytes sent to the client because of RETR commands

  • %{deleted_count} / %d: Number of deleted messages

  • %{deleted_bytes}: Number of bytes in deleted messages

  • %{message_count} / %m: Number of messages before deletion

  • %{message_bytes} / %s: Mailbox size, in bytes, before deletion

  • %{uidl_change} / %u: The old and the new UIDL hash (which can be useful for identifying unexpected changes in UIDLs)

pop3_no_flag_updates

If enabled, do not attempt to mark mail messages as seen or non-recent when a POP3 session is involved.

pop3_reuse_xuidl

If enabled, and the mail message has an X-UIDL header, use this as the mail’s UIDL.

pop3_save_uidl

Maildir only: If enabled, allow permanent permanent saving of UIDLs sent to POP3 clients so that changes to pop3_uidl_format don’t cause future changes to the corresponding UIDLs.

See pop3_uidl_format

pop3_uidl_duplicates

  • Default: allow

  • Values: allow or rename

How to handle any duplicate POP3 UIDLs that may exist.

Options:

  • allow: Show duplicates to clients

  • rename: Append a temporary counter (such as -2 or -3) after the UIDL

pop3_uidl_format

  • Default: %08Xu%08Xv

  • Values: String

The POP3 unique mail identifier (UIDL) format to use.

The following variables can be used in combination with the standard variable modifiers (e.g., %Uf supplies the filename in uppercase):

  • Global variables.

  • %{uidvalidity} / %v: Mailbox’s IMAP UIDVALIDITY value

  • %{uid} / %u: IMAP UID associated with the message

  • %{md5} / %m: MD5 sum of the mailbox headers in hex (mbox only)

  • %{filename} / %f: Filename (Maildir only)

  • %{guid} / %g: Dovecot GUID for the message

pop3c_features

  • Default: <empty>

A space-separated list of features and workarounds that can be enabled for access to a remote POP3 server.

Available options:

  • no-pipelining: Prevents use of the PIPELINING extension even when it’s advertised

pop3c_host

  • Default: <empty>

The remote POP3 server to use for dsync-based migration of mail (which allows preservation of the POP3 UIDLs etc.).

Example:

pop3c_host = pop3.example.com

pop3c_master_user

  • Default: <empty>

If you are using master users for dsync-based migration of mail, this is the master user for the source POP3 server.

To authenticate as a master user but use a separate login user, the following configuration should be employed, where the credentials are represented by masteruser and masteruser-secret:

pop3c_user = %u
pop3c_master_user = masteruser
pop3c_password = masteruser-secret

Mail user variables can be used.

See also pop3c_password.

See also pop3c_user.

pop3c_password

  • Default: <empty>

The password used in the login to the source POP3 server for migration of mail via dsync.

If using master users, this setting will be the password of the master user.

See also pop3c_master_user.

See also pop3c_user.

pop3c_port

  • Default: 110

Port used for connection to the source POP3 server in dsync-based migration of mail.

pop3c_quick_received_date

If enabled, dsync doesn’t require calling TOP for each message in order to get the metadata.

pop3c_rawlog_dir

  • Default: <empty>

Directory location to store raw POP3 protocol traffic logs used in dsync-based migration of mail..

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Rawlog

pop3c_ssl

  • Default: no

  • Values: yes, no, or pop3s

Enable SSL to remote POP3 account for dsync-based migration of mail?

pop3c_ssl_verify

Require SSL verification of remote POP3 account certificate during dsync-based migration of mail.

Verification may be disabled during testing, but should be enabled during production use.

pop3c_user

  • Default: %u

The user identity to be used for performing a regular LOGIN to the source POP3 server in dsync-based migration of mail.

Mail user variables can be used.

See also pop3c_master_user. See also pop3c_password.

postmaster_address

  • Default: postmaster@%{if;%d;ne;;%d;%{hostname}}

The From address from which email rejection messages (bounces) are sent.

As used here, the variable %d expands to the domain of the local user. Other mail user variables can be used as well.

protocols

  • Default: imap pop3 lmtp

The list of protocols this node will support.

It takes a space-separated list of protocols (which are configured separately) as its value.

quota_full_tempfail

If enabled, return a temporary failure to the sending server if quota is exceeded. This allows the message to potentially be delivered later if the account moves under the quota limit at the time of redelivery.

If disabled, the message is bounced with a permanent error returned to the sending server.

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/Quota

rawlog_dir

New in version v2.2.26.

  • Default: <empty>

Location to store rawlog data files.

If empty, rawlog files are not created.

Mail user variables can be used.

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Rawlog

recipient_delimiter

  • Default: +

The separator between the :user and :detail address parts.

rejection_reason

  • Default: Your message to <%t> was automatically rejected:%n%r

A human-readable message for the recipients of bounce messages.

The following variables are allowed:

  • Global variables.

  • %{crlf} / %n: Newline (CRLF)

  • %{reason} / %r: Reason for rejection

  • %{subject} / %s: Original subject line

  • %{to} / %t : Recipient address

The variable values are obtained from the mail being delivered or the delivery protocol.

rejection_subject

  • Default: Rejected: %s

The Subject: header to use for bounce messages.

See rejection_reason for the list of variables that can be used.

See rejection_reason

replication_dsync_parameters

New in version v2.2.9.

  • Default: -d -N -l 30 -U

The parameters used by the replicator for the doveadm sync (dsync) command.

See replicator

replication_full_sync_interval

  • Default: 1day

  • Values: Time

How often full synchronization is to be performed with the replicator.

See replicator

replication_max_conns

How many dsyncs may be run in parallel for replicator.

See replicator

replicator

  • Default:

The replicator host to be used in dsync operation.

replicator_host

  • Default: <empty>

  • Values: String

Specifies remote hostname or UNIX socket to connect for replicator process. If replicator_port is set to 0, then it will be treated as UNIX socket.

See replicator

replicator_port

The port indicated here is used by dsync for replication. If set to 0, replicator_host is interpreted as UNIX socket path.

See replicator

sendmail_paths

  • Default: /usr/sbin/sendmail

The binary to use for sending email.

Used only if submission_host is not set.

See submission_host

shutdown_clients

If enabled, all processes are killed when the master process is shutdown.

Otherwise, existing processes will contiue to run. This may be useful to not interrupt earlier sessions, but may not be desirable if restarting Dovecot to apply a security update, for example.

ssl

  • Default: yes

  • Values: yes, no, or required

The level of SSL support.

ssl=no: SSL/TLS is completely disabled.

With both ssl=yes and ssl=required it’s still possible that the client attempts to do a plaintext authentication before enabling SSL/TLS, which exposes the plaintext password to the internet. Dovecot attempts to indicate this to the IMAP clients via the LOGINDISABLED capability, but many clients still ignore it and send the password anyway. There is unfortunately no way for Dovecot to prevent this behavior. The POP3 standard doesn’t have an equivalent capability at all, so the POP3 clients can’t even know if the server would accept a plaintext authenticatio

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_alt_cert

New in version v2.2.31.

  • Default: <empty>

Specify alternative ssl certificate that will be used if the algorithm differs from the primary certificate.

This is useful when migrating to e.g. an ECDSA certificate.

Example:

ssl_alt_cert = </path/to/alternative/cert.pem

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_alt_key

New in version v2.2.31.

  • Default: <empty>

Specify alternative ssl key that will be used if the algorithm differs from the primary key.

This is useful when migrating to e.g. an ECDSA key.

Example:

ssl_alt_key = </path/to/alternative/key.pem

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_ca

  • Default: <empty>

Example:

ssl_ca = </etc/dovecot/ca.crt

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_cert

  • Default: </etc/ssl/certs/dovecot.pem

The PEM-encoded X.509 SSL/TLS certificate, with the value of ssl_key pointing to the encoded private key.

See ssl

See ssl_key

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_cert_username_field

  • Default: commonName

Which field from the certificate to use for the username.

The most common choices are commonName and x500UniqueIdentifier.

Note

auth_ssl_username_from_cert must be enabled.

See auth_ssl_username_from_cert

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_cipher_list

  • Default: ALL:!kRSA:!SRP:!kDHd:!DSS:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!3DES:!MD5:!PSK:!RC4:!ADH:!LOW@STRENGTH

The list of SSL ciphers to use, in order of preference.

You do not need to edit this setting in order to disable specific SSL protocols; that is best done with ssl_min_protocol instead.

See ssl

See ssl_min_protocol

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_client_ca_dir

  • Default: <empty>

The directory and/or file where trusted SSL CA certificates can be found.

These certs are used only when Dovecot needs to act as an SSL client (e.g. with the imapc back end).

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL

ssl_client_ca_file

  • Default: <empty>

Specifies CAs to verify outgoing connections from dovecot. Note that this setting isn’t recommended to be used with large CA bundles, because all the certificates are read into memory. This leads to excessive memory usage, because it gets multiplied by the number of imap processes. It’s better to either use ssl_client_ca_dir setting or use a CA bundle that only contains the CAs that are actually necessary.

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_client_cert

  • Default: <empty>

Client certificate used in outgoing SSL connections.

Example Setting:

ssl_client_cert = </etc/dovecot/dovecot-client.crt

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_client_key

  • Default: <empty>

Client certificate private key used in outgoing SSL connections.

Example Setting:

ssl_client_key = </etc/dovecot/dovecot-client.key

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL

ssl_crypto_device

  • Default: <empty>

  • Values: <Obtain by running openssl engine command>

Which SSL crypto device to use.

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_curve_list

  • Default: <empty>

Colon separated list of elliptic curves to use.

An empty value uses the defaults from the SSL library.

Example:

ssl_curve_list = P-521:P-384:P-256

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_dh

New in version v2.3.

  • Default: <empty>

As of Dovecot v2.3, the path to the Diffie-Hellman parameters file must be provided.

You can generate a new parameters file by, for example, running openssl gendh 4096 on a machine with sufficient entropy (this may take some time).

Example Setting:

ssl_dh=</path/to/dh.pem

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_client_require_valid_cert

Require a valid cerficate when connecting to external SSL services?

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_key

  • Default: <empty>

The PEM-encoded X.509 SSL/TLS key, with the value of ssl_key pointing to the encoded private certificate.

Example Setting:

ssl_key = </etc/ssl/private/dovecot.pem

See ssl

See ssl_cert

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_key_password

  • Default: <empty>

The password to use if the SSL key file is password-protected.

Since this file is often world-readable, you may wish to specify the path to a file containing the password, rather than the password itself, by using the ormat ssl_key_password = <path here. The path should be to a root-owned file with mode 0600.

Alternatively, you can supply the password via the -p parameter at startup.

See ssl

See ssl_key

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_min_protocol

  • Default: TLSv1.2

The minimum SSL protocol version Dovecot accepts. Supported values are:

  • ANY - Support any version. (should not be used)

  • SSLv3 - Support SSLv3+. (should not be used)

  • TLSv1 - Support TLSv1+.

  • TLSv1.1 - Support TLSv1.1+.

  • TLSv1.2 - Support TLSv1.2+. (default)

  • TLSv1.3 - Support TLSv1.3+.

  • LATEST - Support only the latest version available.

See ssl

See ssl_cipher_list

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_options

  • Default: <empty>

Additional options for SSL.

Currently supported options are:

  • compression: (before v2.3) Enable compression.

  • no_compression: (v2.3+) Disable compression.

  • no_ticket: Disable SSL session tickets.

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_prefer_server_ciphers

If enabled, give preference to the server’s cipher list over a client’s list.

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_require_crl

If enabled, the CRL check must succeed for client certificates.

See ssl

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

ssl_verify_client_cert

If enabled, the client is required to send a certificate that can be verified.

See ssl

See auth_ssl_require_client_cert

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL/DovecotConfiguration

See: https://wiki.dovecot.org/SSL

state_dir

  • Default: /var/lib/dovecot

The compile-time directory PKG_STATEDIR (typically /var/lib/dovecot) is hard-coded as the location of things such as the ssl-parameters.dat file and the replicator database. The PKG_STATEDIR value is taken as the default state_dir setting but can be overridden - for instance, if you wish to use the same binaries for a system daemon and a user daemon.

The settings state_dir = /home/foo/dovecot/state and base_dir = /home/foo/dovecot/run give an example of usage.

stats_writer_socket_path

  • Default: stats-writer

The path to the stats-writer socket.

submission_client_workarounds

  • Default: <empty>

Configures the list of active workarounds for Submission client bugs. The list is space-separated. Supported workaround identifiers are:

  • whitespace-before-path - Allow one or more spaces or tabs between ‘MAIL FROM:’ and path and between ‘RCPT TO:’ and path.

  • mailbox-for-path - Allow using bare Mailbox syntax (i.e., without <…>) instead of full path syntax.

submission_host

  • Default: <empty>

Use this SMTP submission host to send messages.

Overrides sendmail_path value, if set.

See sendmail_paths

submission_host = mail.example.com:6543

submission_logout_format

  • Default: in=%i out=%o

  • Values: String

The SMTP Submission logout format string.

Variables supported:

  • Mail user variables.

  • %{input} / %i: Bytes read from client

  • %{output} / %o: Bytes sent to client

  • %{command_count}: Number of commands received from client

  • %{reply_count}: Number of replies sent to client

  • %{transaction_id}: ID of the current transaction, if any

submission_max_mail_size

  • Default: 40M

  • Values: Size

The maximum message size accepted for relay.

This value is announced in the SMTP SIZE capability.

If empty, this value is either determined from the relay server or left unlimited if no limit is known; the relay MTA will reply with error if some unknown limit exists there, which will be passed back to the client.

submission_max_recipients

Maximum number of recipients accepted per connection.

submission_relay_command_timeout

Timeout for SMTP commands issued to the submission service’s relay server.

The timeout is reset every time more data is being sent or received.

submission_relay_connect_timeout

Timeout for connecting to and logging into the submission service’s relay server.

submission_relay_host

  • Default: <empty>

Host of the relay server (required to provide the submission service).

submission_relay_master_user

  • Default: <empty>

Master user name for authentication to the relay MTA if authentication is required.

submission_relay_max_idle_time

  • Default: 29mins

  • Values: Time

Submission relay max idle time for connection to relay MTA.

submission_relay_password

  • Default: <empty>

Password for authentication to the relay MTA if authentication is required.

submission_relay_port

  • Default: 25

Port for the submission relay server.

submission_relay_rawlog_dir

  • Default: <empty>

Write protocol logs for relay connection to this directory for debugging.

Mail user variables can be used.

see: https://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Rawlog

submission_relay_ssl

  • Default: no

  • Values: no, smtps, or starttls

If enabled, SSL/TLS is used for the connection to the relay server.

Avaialble values:

  • no: No SSL connection is used

  • smtps: An SMTPS connection (immediate SSL) is used

  • starttls:: The STARTTLS command is used to establish the TLS layer

submission_relay_ssl_verify

If enabled, TLS certificate of the relay server must be verified.

submission_relay_trusted

If enabled, the relay server is trusted.

Determines whether we try to send (Postfix-specific) XCLIENT data to the relay server (only if enabled).

submission_relay_user

  • Default: <empty>

User name for authentication to the relay MTA if authentication is required.

submission_ssl

If enabled, use SSL/TLS to connect to submission_host.

See submission_host

submission_timeout

  • Default: 30secs

  • Values: Time

Timeout for submitting outgoing messages.

See submission_host

syslog_facility

  • Default: mail

The syslog facility used if you’re logging to syslog.

valid_chroot_dirs

A colon-separated list of directories under which chrooting is allowed for mail processes.

Addresses the risk of root exploits enabled by incorrect use of chrooting.

Interpretation is recursive, so including /var/mail allows chrooting to subdirectories such as /var/mail/foo/bar.

verbose_proctitle

If enabled, the ps command shows more verbose process details, including the username and IP address of the connected client.

This aids in seeing who is actually using the IMAP processes.

verbose_ssl

If enabled, protocol-level SSL errors are logged.

version_ignore

If enabled, ignore version mismatches between different Dovecot versions.