[Dovecot] Password authentication and character set

[Geert Hendrickx]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 01:54:48PM +0200, Fredrik Grönqvist wrote:
> Thanks for the info, a setup like this is what I opted for eventually. I
> added a note to that wiki page that the query also needs to return the
> "nopassword" -field for Dovecot 1.1+ to accept the NULL password:


Ok, good catch (I hadn't actually tested the example).


> In case someone else is looking for info about this, this workaround
> works for DB backed accounts, as you mention, but will probably not work
> with an LDAP (or other) backend.


Right, it's just a hack that fits your particular setup. :-)

For a proper solution the IMAP specification would have to be updated to
allow non-ASCII characters in logins/passwords, and apparantly they _are_
discussing that.  But even if the IMAP protocol gets updated to allow it,
this would also impact eg. POP3 and SMTP authentication which in many
setups use the same passwords.  And of course all IMAP (and other) client
software (including webmails etc) would have to be adapted, too.


	Geert