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Simple Virtual User Installation
================================

 * Virtual users configured in '/etc/dovecot/passwd' file
 * Assuming an unmodified Dovecot v2.x installation
 * Assuming you're not using NFS. See <NFS.txt> for problems related to it.

Contents


 1. Simple Virtual User Installation

 2. System configuration

 3. dovecot.conf

 4. /etc/dovecot/passwd

     1. Passwords

 5. SMTP server configuration

     1. Delivering mails

     2. SMTP AUTH

 6. Quota

System configuration
====================

 * Create *dovecot* and *dovenull* users and groups if they don't exist yet.
   These are unprivileged users for Dovecot's internal use. They doen't need a
   home directory or a shell.
 * Create *vmail* user and *vmail* group. This is the user/group that's used to
   access the mails.
 * Create '/home/vmail' directory owned by vmail:vmail. The mails for all users
   are stored under this directory.
 * Create '/var/log/dovecot.log' and '/var/log/dovecot-info.log' files owned by
   vmail:vmail, so that <dovecot-lda> [LDA.txt] can write to them.

dovecot.conf
============

Below is a fully working 'dovecot.conf' file. You can use it directly, but it
might be better to instead use the included example-config as the base and make
the same modifications to it.

If you want to configure SSL, see <SSL.txt>.

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
protocols = imap pop3

# It's nice to have separate log files for Dovecot. You could do this
# by changing syslog configuration also, but this is easier.
log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log
info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot-info.log

# Disable SSL for now.
ssl = no
disable_plaintext_auth = no

# We're using Maildir format
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir

# If you're using POP3, you'll need this:
pop3_uidl_format = %g

# Authentication configuration:
auth_verbose = yes
auth_mechanisms = plain
passdb {
  driver = passwd-file
  args = /etc/dovecot/passwd
}
userdb {
  driver = static
  args = uid=vmail gid=vmail home=/home/vmail/%u
}
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

/etc/dovecot/passwd
===================

See <AuthDatabase.PasswdFile.txt> for the full file format. Here we're
interested only having usernames and passwords in it. Below's an example file:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
test:{PLAIN}pass::::::
bill:{PLAIN}secret::::::
timo@example.com:{PLAIN}hello123::::::
dave@example.com:{PLAIN}world234::::::
joe@elsewhere.org:{PLAIN}whee::::::
jane@elsewhere.org:{PLAIN}mypass::::::
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see, you can use multiple domains in the file, or no domains at all.
Dovecot doesn't care about domains. The extra colons are needed for <userdb>
[UserDatabase.txt] passwd-file format, and can be omitted if you are using the
static user database in the example above.

Users can be added by editing this file. Dovecot automatically notices the new
users immediately after they're added. It also creates their home directories
when the user logs in.

Passwords
---------

The passwords in the example passwd file are listed using plaintext scheme.
It's possible to use other <password schemes>
[Authentication.PasswordSchemes.txt] as well. For example SSHA256 would be a
pretty strong scheme. You can create them using 'doveadm pw' utility, for
example:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
doveadm pw -s ssha256
Enter new password: foo
Retype new password: foo
{SSHA256}ZpgszeowIcHdoxe3BNqvUTtPxFd6fMsyQxEWyY0Qlobaacjk
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that you won't get the same output after {SSHA256} as above, because
Dovecot uses random salts when creating the SSHA256 hash. This means that even
if multiple users have the same password, you won't know that because their
hashes are different.

The passwd file entry would be:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
{SSHA256}ZpgszeowIcHdoxe3BNqvUTtPxFd6fMsyQxEWyY0Qlobaacjk
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe would now have "foo" as his password.

SMTP server configuration
=========================

Delivering mails
----------------

You can configure the SMTP server to deliver mails internally, or you can use
<dovecot-lda> [LDA.txt]. Using dovecot-lda gives you better performance because
it updates Dovecot's index files while saving the mails. See <LDA.txt> for how
to configure this. Alternatively you can also use <LMTP.txt>. In config you
should have:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
protocol lda {
  postmaster_address = postmaster@example.com
}
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

SMTP AUTH
---------

If you're using Postfix v2.3+ or Exim v4.64+ you can use Dovecot SASL instead
of Cyrus SASL.

 * <Postfix configuration> [HowTo.PostfixAndDovecotSASL.txt]
 * <Exim configuration> [HowTo.EximAndDovecotSASL.txt]

Quota
=====

If you need to have quota, add this to 'dovecot.conf':

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
mail_plugins = $mail_plugins quota
protocol imap {
  mail_plugins = $mail_plugins imap_quota
}
plugin {
  quota = maildir
}
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then configure quota by adding 'userdb_quota_rule' <extra field>
[UserDatabase.ExtraFields.txt] to '/etc/dovecot/passwd', for example:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
joe:{PLAIN}pass::::::userdb_quota_rule=*:storage=100M
jane:{PLAIN}pass::::::userdb_quota_rule=*:storage=200M
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe has now 100MB quota and Jane has 200MB quota. See <Quota.txt> for more
information about quota settings.

(This file was created from the wiki on 2019-06-19 12:42)