Testing validity of Dovecot config in a script

[Aki Tuomi]

> On 24 November 2018 at 16:45 Ralph Seichter <m16+dovecot at monksofcool.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> While trying to determine a given configuration is valid from within a
> script, I found that the following works with Dovecot version 2.3.2.1:
> 
>   #!/usr/bin/env bash
>   doveconf -n >/dev/null || echo "Config is invalid"
> 
> However, the return code is not documented in the doveconf manual page,
> and I wonder if the observed behaviour can be relied on? Is this the
> recommended method to test configuration validity?
> 
> Personally, I'd like to have a dedicated call available. Something like
> 
>   # Proposal: "-t" for "test config"
>   doveconf -t [-c config-file]
> 
> with documented return codes would be ideal.
> 
> -Ralph

doveconf will reliably fail if config file cannot be parsed. It will not catch all possible misconfigurations, but it will catch most. Particularly plugin settings are not validated.

Aki