Frank Bonnet wrote: > ssl_cert = </etc/ssl/certs/dovecot.pem > ssl_key = </etc/ssl/private/dovecot.pem Does your configuration file have those "<" characters in it? If so, try getting rid of those. ssl_cert = /etc/ssl/certs/dovecot.pem ssl_key = /etc/ssl/private/dovecot.pem