- dovecot - dovecot.org

Feature request: allow Settings variables to be used in ldap_auth_dn
by Kristian 16 Oct '25

16 Oct '25

Hi, with the migration to 2.4 my setup for LDAP authentication stopped working. I used to have different LDAP config files for every virtual domain. Each domain has an domain-specific service user with read access, that is used by dovecot. There is no service user with access across domains. With the current 2.4 configuration I only see the possibility to configure one user in the variables ldap_auth_dn ldap_auth_dn_password In ldap_base I am able to use settings variables ldap_base = ou=people,dc=%{user | domain | ldap_dn} which allows me to select the right LDAP tree depending on the domain of the user. I would need this also in ldap_auth_dn to keep my current setup. I can see, that this is specific to my setup without an service user with access to all domains, and that this ignores the problem of having different passwords for different domain users, but it would at least keep some compatibility to working 2.3 setups. Kind regards Kristian

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auth_cache_ttl and sieve_enabled
by Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz 14 Oct '25

14 Oct '25

Hi, auth_cache_ttl docs https://doc.dovecot.org/main/core/config/auth/caching.html say: " # We also try to handle password changes automatically: If user's previous # authentication was successful, but this one wasn't, the cache isn't used. " but seems that this doesn't work in such way for sieve_enabled flag changes. So changing sieve_enabled from 0 to 1 means user still has to wait until cache expires and new value is noticed by dovecot... which is not desired. Could sieve_enabled be also treated in similar way as incorrect authentication? -- Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz, arekm / ( maven.pl | pld-linux.org )

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Ssl_cert keyword ?
by MellorCH 10 Oct '25

10 Oct '25

> V2.4.1 what’s the latest syntax for this please? Ssl_cert V2.4.1 what's the latest syntax for this please? Ssl_cert

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SSL initialization error - Dovecot 2.4.1, Fedora 43 beta
by Jason J.G. White 09 Oct '25

09 Oct '25

I'm trying Dovecot 2.4.1 under Fedora 43 beta with all packages up to date. I've encountered several issues after attempting to update my configuration. The main problem is this: whenever a client attempts to connect, I get the following error Error: Failed to initialize SSL connection: Couldn't initialize SSL server context: Can't load SSL certificate (ssl_server_cert_file setting): error:0A00018F:SSL routines::ee key too small: I'm using a SECP384R1 key issued by letsencrypt.org, which should satisfy security checks. My Web searches have not identified a relevant bug report. Have others encountered this issue? If it's distribution-specific, I can visit the relevant bug tracker. Thank you for your consideration.

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Does ldap_auth_sasl_mechanisms support GSSAPI?
by Fredrik Falk 08 Oct '25

08 Oct '25

I'm attempting to authenticate dovecot against an OpenLDAP server using GSSAPI. Setting `ldap_auth_sasl_mechanisms = gssapi` causes the server to fail to boot with the error `ldap_auth_sasl_mechanism set, but no SASL support compiled in`. I'm wondering if there's a dependency that I'm missing, or if there's no support for it with the deb packages provided at https://repo.dovecot.org/. For reference, I'm running Ubuntu 24.04 with the dovecot apt repository added. `dovecot --version` outputs `2.4.1-4+ubuntu24.04 (7d8c0e5759)`. `dovecot --build-options` yields ``` Build options: ioloop=epoll notify=inotify openssl io_block_size=8192 SQL driver plugins: mysql postgresql sqlite Passdb: ldap pam passwd passwd-file sql Userdb: ldap(plugin) passwd prefetch passwd-file sql ``` Do I need to compile my own version, or is there something I'm missing? The documentation doesn't provide a lot of answers unfortunately. Med vänlig hälsning, Fredrik Falk -- Fredrik Falk <freddo(a)ludd.ltu.se> Luleå Universitets Datorförening /LUDD/

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Announcement: wormhole plugin, replication for Dovecot 2.4
by Patrick Cernko 07 Oct '25

07 Oct '25

Hello List, I am proud to announce my project "wormhole". This is an extension for Dovecot 2.4.1. It allows to continue the use of the replication feature of Dovecot that was removed with the 2.4 release. History: I started this project by forking the replication code of Dovecot 2.3.21.1 and porting it to 2.4. The first result was a patch for Dovecot 2.4.1. While working with the code, I realized that it is possible to provide the feature as a plugin / extension. In the first release of the plugin, I tried to integrate it with the existing dsync commands for doveadm. This required an API for access to the dsync commands, which I proposed to the Dovecot developers in https://github.com/dovecot/core/pull/249 . Unfortunately, my pull request was rejected, though I can understand the reasons for that. Without the required API, I had to switch to another approach: I forked the dsync code from doveadm to provide a new set of commands: "repl" and "repl-server". These commands work similar to "sync" and "dsync-server" but use additional functions required by the replication feature. This approach was released as version 0.3 of the plugin. With version 0.4 I renamed the project to wormhole. Before that it was just called dovecot-replication (see https://codeberg.org/errror/dovecot-replication) I thought that the project should have a more unique name. Currently I'm working on designing a test suite for wormhole. Doing unit tests of the components is not sufficient IMHO. The test suite should check the whole replication feature using two running dovecot instances that replicate the users' mailboxes. Having a sophisticated test suite will help in future development and bug tracking. The code can be found on my codeberg site at: https://codeberg.org/errror/wormhole There is also a web page on my personal homepage at: https://people.mpi-klsb.mpg.de/~pcernko/wormhole.shtml The project is still missing documentation. For the moment, configuration is similar to the existing Dovecot 2.3 documentation. Upgrading from 2.3: When using the included patch for Dovecot, the plugin should be 100% compatible with existing Dovecot 2.3 servers. This compatibility should allow uninterrupted upgrades of the service by replacing Dovecot on one server and then the other one. After the upgrade, the plugin can be reconfigured to work without the patch for Dovecot. Upgrading without the patch is also possible. During the upgrade (aka "while one server still runs 2.3") some aspects of the replication will not work or lack performance. Upgrading is not yet tested very well and missing documentation also. I will work on that soon. I hope to get some feedback, pull requests or bug reports via mail or at codeberg (preferred). -- Patrick Cernko <pcernko(a)mpi-klsb.mpg.de> +49 681 9325 5815 Joint Scientific IT and Technical Service Max-Planck-Institute für Informatik & Softwaresysteme

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Quota plugin: "quota_storage_size" not recognized from userdb extra fields in dovecot 2.4.1
by Matthieu Schapranow 07 Oct '25

07 Oct '25

Dear Dovecot experts, I am in the process of planning migration from dovecot 2.3 to 2.4.1+dfsg1-6 on Debian Trixie, but userdb extra fields for quota_storage_size are ignored. All settings proved to work in 2.3; following per-user quota manual as outlined in [1]. Issue Cannot override setting quota_storage_size using userdb_quota_storage_size, but userdb_quota_storage_extra and userdb_quota_storage_percentage apparently work. Setup Configures multiple userdb using driver passwd combined for a) user information and b) user-specific extra fields; auth. via passdb using driver pam defined in auth-system.conf.ext included by 10-auth.conf Excerpt from doveconf -n: … passdb system_pam { driver = pam } userdb userdb_01_passwd { driver = passwd result_internalfail = return-fail result_success = continue-ok } userdb userdb_02_quota { passwd_file_path = /etc/dovecot/quota-user-settings driver = passwd-file result_internalfail = return-fail result_success = continue } … Excerpt from passwd file /etc/dovecot/quota-user-settings holding userdb extra fields: web1p1:::::::userdb_quota_storage_size=1200M Default quota config excerpt from doveconf -n: … quota user { storage_grace = 100M storage_size = 750M quota_warning warn-95 { quota_storage_percentage = 95 execute quota-warning { args = 95 %{user} } } quota_warning warn-85 { quota_storage_percentage = 85 execute quota-warning { args = 85 %{user} } } } … Result Userdb setting appear to work correctly as it combines both userdb files, see following output: # doveadm user web1p1 field value uid 644 gid 105 home /home/pop/web1p1 mail_path /home/pop/web1p1/mail system_groups_user web1p1 quota_storage_size 1200M However, querying the quota only shows the default value, but not the user-specific setting. # doveadm quota get -u web1p1 Quota name Type Value Limit % user STORAGE 798830 768000 104 user MESSAGE 5617 - 0 Expected behaviour Any user should report default user quota (here 750M), but user web1p1 having user-specific setting for userdb_quota_storage_size=1200M should report a higher quota limit overriding the default quota setting. I tried to specify user-specific values for userdb_quota_storage_extra and userdb_quota_storage_percentage, which worked; probably, because there were no default value specified in the config, yet? Setting userdb_quota_storage_extra to 200M works: web1p1:::::::userdb_quota_storage_extra=200M … # doveadm user web1p1 field value uid 644 gid 105 home /home/pop/web1p1 mail_path /home/pop/web1p1/mail system_groups_user web1p1 quota_storage_extra 200M … # doveadm quota get -u web1p1 Quota name Type Value Limit % user STORAGE 798830 972800 82 user MESSAGE 5617 - 0 Quota is reported as correctly as 750M+200M=950M. Same approach works when setting userdb_quota_storage_percentage, e.g. to a value above 100. [1] https://doc.dovecot.org/main/core/plugins/quota.html#per-user-quota Many thanks for your support! Matthieu Dear Dovecot experts, I am in the process of planning migration from dovecot 2.3 to 2.4.1+dfsg1-6 on Debian Trixie, but userdb extra fields for quota_storage_size are ignored. All settings proved to work in 2.3; following per-user quota manual as outlined in [1]. Issue Cannot override setting quota_storage_size using userdb_quota_storage_size, but userdb_quota_storage_extra and userdb_quota_storage_percentage apparently work. Setup Configures multiple userdb using driver passwd combined for a) user information and b) user-specific extra fields; auth. via passdb using driver pam defined in auth-system.conf.ext included by 10-auth.conf Excerpt from doveconf -n: ... passdb system_pam { driver = pam } userdb userdb_01_passwd { driver = passwd result_internalfail = return-fail result_success = continue-ok } userdb userdb_02_quota { passwd_file_path = /etc/dovecot/quota-user-settings driver = passwd-file result_internalfail = return-fail result_success = continue } ... Excerpt from passwd file /etc/dovecot/quota-user-settings holding userdb extra fields: web1p1:::::::userdb_quota_storage_size=1200M Default quota config excerpt from doveconf -n: ... quota user { storage_grace = 100M storage_size = 750M quota_warning warn-95 { quota_storage_percentage = 95 execute quota-warning { args = 95 %{user} } } quota_warning warn-85 { quota_storage_percentage = 85 execute quota-warning { args = 85 %{user} } } } ... Result Userdb setting appear to work correctly as it combines both userdb files, see following output: # doveadm user web1p1 field value uid 644 gid 105 home /home/pop/web1p1 mail_path /home/pop/web1p1/mail system_groups_user web1p1 quota_storage_size 1200M However, querying the quota only shows the default value, but not the user-specific setting. # doveadm quota get -u web1p1 Quota name Type Value Limit % user STORAGE 798830 768000 104 user MESSAGE 5617 - 0 Expected behaviour Any user should report default user quota (here 750M), but user web1p1 having user-specific setting for userdb_quota_storage_size=1200M should report a higher quota limit overriding the default quota setting. I tried to specify user-specific values for userdb_quota_storage_extra and userdb_quota_storage_percentage, which worked; probably, because there were no default value specified in the config, yet? Setting userdb_quota_storage_extra to 200M works: web1p1:::::::userdb_quota_storage_extra=200M ... # doveadm user web1p1 field value uid 644 gid 105 home /home/pop/web1p1 mail_path /home/pop/web1p1/mail system_groups_user web1p1 quota_storage_extra 200M ... # doveadm quota get -u web1p1 Quota name Type Value Limit % user STORAGE 798830 972800 82 user MESSAGE 5617 - 0 Quota is reported as correctly as 750M+200M=950M. Same approach works when setting userdb_quota_storage_percentage, e.g. to a value above 100. [1] [1]https://doc.dovecot.org/main/core/plugins/quota.html#per-user-quota Many thanks for your support! Matthieu References Visible links 1. https://doc.dovecot.org/main/core/plugins/quota.html#per-user-quota

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Confusion about ACL Files in Shared Mailboxes
by fc26wuqa＠studserv.uni-leipzig.de 07 Oct '25

07 Oct '25

Hello, I have a shared mailbox which I want to set ACL permissions to. I already tried "doveadm acl set -u shared-user Shared/shared_mailbox group=somegroup lookup read write write-seen write-deleted insert post delete expunge create" My shared namespace is configured like this: "type = shared, prefix = Shared/%%u" I get "Error: Can't update acl object '': No local acl file path", "Error: Mailbox Shared/shared_mailbox: Failed to set ACL". When I do "* group=some_group kxeilprwts" in dovecot-acl in the shared Mailbox, all users in group some_group lose all access to their folders (shared and not shared) except INBOX. What am I doing wrong?

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recipient_delimiter issue
by Benoit Panizzon 06 Oct '25

06 Oct '25

Hi Gang We use Postfix and Dovecot. To allow customers to use sub addressing we have configured postfix and dovecot with recipient_delimiter = + This allows email addresses of the form john+doe(a)example.com The way postfix processes the recipient_delimiter is by first looking up 'john+doe' and if this is not found, try again with 'john'. This allow both to work, email accounts which contain the + sign as part of the address and sub addressing. Collisions may happen! I am aware of this! The full email address with + wins. I recall dovecot also performed the same lookup in an earlier version but I might be wrong as now after some colleagues re-configured our email platform to use authentication caching and the dovecot proxy functionality, this does not work anymore. Dovecot takes + as hard delimiter and only performs a lookup for 'john' thus returns the account 'john' does not exist. Is there a way to configure dovecot to handle recipient_delimiter the same way postfix does by trying the full username first and only if that fails retry with the part in front of the delimiter? Mit freundlichen Grüssen -Benoît Panizzon- -- I m p r o W a r e A G - Leiter Commerce Kunden ______________________________________________________ Zurlindenstrasse 29 Tel +41 61 826 93 00 CH-4133 Pratteln Fax +41 61 826 93 01 Schweiz Web http://www.imp.ch ______________________________________________________

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Lots of problems with Dovecot 2.4
by sev+dovecot＠sev.monster 06 Oct '25

06 Oct '25

Hello all, I am trying to get Dovecot 2.4 running on Alpine Edge x86-64. But a myriad of problems have occurred that make it impossible to do so. First of all was the recent off-by-one bug that was recently fixed, which caused an unavoidable segfault on start under musl libc, which Alpine uses: https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/aports/-/issues/17050 Then, I saw that the shadow driver was removed, which necessitated the installation of PAM and my learning about it... I haven't needed it before, so I'd never used it. I guess I understand why the decision was made to use PAM, though I still don't like it. After resolving those issue, I've run into new ones: 1. The passwd userdb does not seem to work correctly. It is able to get the first user and its information correctly, but any attempts to look up any user after that will seemingly always use the information from the first matched user. Setting max auths to 1 so that the auth process is discarded afterwards does not seem to help. For example, if the first user to log in to Dovecot is bob, and then user joe logs in, the information returned from the passwd userdb will all be that of user bob, not joe. This continues for all subsequent userdb lookups until Dovecot is restarted, and a new userdb lookup is persisted. Changing to passwd-file instead works and does not experience this problem. 2. Why is the only available username field for the passwd driver %{passwd:system_groups_user}? I understand what the purpose of the field is based on the docs, but shouldn't more than this be exposed? The fields available through passwd are also not documented, and I had to read the source to find them out. This should either be documented or a more standard username field be additionally exposed as with other drivers. Can this field even be relied on to use as the username, if the driver otherwise worked? 3. It seems the Exim auth driver is no longer able to successfully authenticate with Dovecot 2.4 against Exim 4.98.2. It works fine in the last version of 2.3.21.1. Has the authentication framework changed along with the other modifications that 2.4 underwent? Has any effort been made with the Exim team to resolve any incompatibilities? Can I somehow diagnose this issue if it's otherwise supposed to work? 4. The ldap driver can no longer look up missing fields from LDAP users. Some (but not all) of my users have the rfc2307bis schema posixAccount supplemental objectClass, and as such contain the posixHome, uidNumber, and gidNumber attributes—but even if I specify a default value, if one of the attributes is not queryable for the returned user, the lookup errors out and the login fails. This is a regression/undocumented change from 2.3.x, where instead of erroring out, the default_fields value would be used. Based on my interpretation of the design goals for 2.4, I would imagine the default filter would ignore the missing attribute error and set the default value like default_fields used to, no? Or am I missing something? 5. passdb_ldap_filter is always required for the ldap passdb driver, even if passdb_ldap_bind is enabled. Not only does this go against the docs, but the value is unused and it doesn't matter what it's set to. This is a regression from 2.3.x. Overall I am very unimpressed by 2.4. It clearly needed a lot more time in the oven and much more thorough testing. Relevant minimal config from my working 2.3.21.1 install: auth_username_format = %Ln auth_mechanisms = plain login passdb { driver = shadow } userdb { driver = passwd override_fields = gid=mail home=/var/mail/%Ln } passdb { driver = ldap args = /etc/dovecot/ldap-passdb.conf.ext #uris = ldapi://%2frun%2fopenldap%2fslapd.sock #base = ou=accounts,dc=ldap #auth_bind = yes #auth_bind_userdn = uid=%Ln,ou=accounts,dc=ldap } userdb { driver = ldap default_fields = uid=mail gid=mail home=/var/mail/%Ln args = /etc/dovecot/ldap-userdb.conf.ext #uris = ldapi://%2frun%2fopenldap%2fslapd.sock #dn = cn=dovecot,dc=ldap #dnpass = "some pw" #base = ou=accounts,dc=ldap #iterate_filter = (objectClass=inetOrgPerson) #iterate_attrs = uid=username #user_filter = (&(objectClass=inetOrgPerson)(uid=%Ln)) #user_attrs = homeDirectory=home,uidNumber=uid,gidNumber=gid } mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/%Ln mail_plugins = $mail_plugins virtual namespace inbox { inbox = yes mailbox INBOX { auto = subscribe } } namespace virtual { type = private separator = . prefix = "Search Folders." location = virtual:/etc/dovecot/virtual:INDEX=~/dovecot-virtual.cache:CONTROL=~/dovecot-virtual.cache:VOLATILEDIR=~/dovecot-virtual.cache # virtual/All/dovecot-virtual: #!INBOX #* #-Junk #-Junk* #-Spam #-Spam* #-Trash #-Trash* #-Deleted #-Deleted* #-Deleted Items #-Deleted Items* # all hidden = yes list = children subscriptions = no mailbox All { auto = subscribe special_use = \All comment = All messages, excluding Junk and Trash } } namespace virtual-user { type = private separator = . prefix = "User Search Folders." location = virtual:~/.virtual:INDEX=~/dovecot-virtual-user.cache:CONTROL=~/dovecot-virtual-user.cache:VOLATILEDIR=~/dovecot-virtual-user.cache:LAYOUT=maildir++ hidden = yes list = children subscriptions = no } service auth { unix_listener auth-userdb { # restrict userdb to dovecot user/group only instead of world read/write mode = 0660 user = $default_internal_user group = $default_internal_group } unix_listener auth-client { # give Exim access to native authentication mode = 0660 group = exim } } service auth-worker { # no need to run as root user = $default_internal_user # allow pam passdb to read /etc/shadow group = shadow } !include_try /usr/share/dovecot/protocols.d/*.conf protocol imap { mail_max_userip_connections = 25 } protocol pop3 { mail_max_userip_connections = 25 } Converted config for 2.4: dovecot_config_version = 2.4.1 dovecot_storage_version = 2.4.1 mail_home = /var/mail/%{user | username | lower } mail_driver = maildir mail_path = $SET:mail_home mail_plugins = virtual auth_username_format = %{user | username | lower } auth_mechanisms = plain login passdb pam { failure_show_msg = yes max_requests = 1 } userdb passwd-file { passwd_file_path = /etc/passwd fields { gid = mail } } # BUG: doesn't work right #userdb passwd { # fields { # gid = mail # } #} passdb ldap { ldap_uris = ldapi://%2frun%2fopenldap%2fslapd.sock ldap_connection_group = login ldap_base = ou=accounts,dc=ldap ldap_bind = yes ldap_bind_userdn = uid=%{user | username | lower },ou=accounts,dc=ldap # XXX: thought this wasnt needed with bind? ldap_filter = z } userdb ldap { ldap_uris = ldapi://%2frun%2fopenldap%2fslapd.sock ldap_auth_dn = cn=dovecot,dc=ldap ldap_auth_dn_password = "some pw" ldap_base = ou=accounts,dc=ldap ldap_filter = (&(objectClass=inetOrgPerson)(uid=%{user | username | lower })) fields { username = %{ldap:uid} # BUG: causes errors if rfc2307bis posixAccount objectClass is not set home = %{ldap:homeDirectory | default($SET:mail_home)} uid = %{ldap:uidNumber | default(mail)} gid = %{ldap:gidNumber | default(mail)} } ldap_iterate_filter = (objectClass=inetOrgPerson) iterate_fields { username = %{ldap:uid} } } namespace inbox { inbox = yes mailbox INBOX { auto = subscribe } } namespace virtual { type = private separator = . prefix = "Search Folders." mail_driver = virtual mail_path = /etc/dovecot/virtual # virtual/All/dovecot-virtual: #!INBOX #* #-Junk #-Junk* #-Spam #-Spam* #-Trash #-Trash* #-Deleted #-Deleted* #-Deleted Items #-Deleted Items* # all mail_index_path = ~/dovecot-virtual.cache mail_control_path = ~/dovecot-virtual.cache mail_volatile_path = ~/dovecot-virtual.cache hidden = yes list = children subscriptions = no mailbox All { auto = subscribe special_use = \All comment = All messages, excluding Junk and Trash } } namespace virtual-user { type = private separator = . prefix = "User Search Folders." mail_driver = virtual mail_path = ~/dovecot-virtual-user mail_index_path = ~/dovecot-virtual-user.cache mail_control_path = ~/dovecot-virtual-user.cache mail_volatile_path = ~/dovecot-virtual-user.cache mailbox_list_layout = Maildir++ hidden = yes list = children subscriptions = no } service auth { unix_listener auth-userdb { # restrict userdb to dovecot user/group only instead of world read/write mode = 0660 } unix_listener auth-client { # give Exim access to native authentication mode = 0660 group = exim } } service auth-worker { # no need to run as root user = $SET:default_internal_user # allow pam passdb to read /etc/shadow group = shadow } protocols = imap pop3 protocol imap { mail_max_userip_connections = 25 } protocol pop3 { mail_max_userip_connections = 25 } In addition to help with the noted issues, I'd also love if anyone more knowledgeable on Dovecot 2.4 could give any pointers on my config and if I could improve the translation in any way, given I have been fumbling around with it for weeks and am not really sure if my various decisions are correct. Best regards.

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