DOVECOT(1)                                   Dovecot                                   DOVECOT(1)



NAME
       dovecot - a secure and highly configurable IMAP and POP3 server

SYNOPSIS
       dovecot [-Fp] [-c config-file]
       dovecot -a [-c config-file]
       dovecot -n [-c config-file]
       dovecot --build-options
       dovecot --help
       dovecot --hostdomain
       dovecot --version
       dovecot reload
       dovecot stop

DESCRIPTION
       Dovecot  is  an open source IMAP and POP3 server for Linux/UNIX-like systems, written with
       security primarily in mind.  Dovecot is an excellent  choice  for  both  small  and  large
       installations.   It's  fast,  simple  to set up, requires no special administration and it
       uses very little memory.

OPTIONS
       -a     Dump all configuration settings to stdout and exit successfully.  The same as dove‐
              conf -a.

       -c config-file
              Start dovecot with an alternative configuration.

       -F     Run dovecot in foreground, do not daemonize.

       -n     Dump  non-default  settings  to  stdout  and  exit successfully.  The same as dove‐
              conf -n.

       -p     Prompt for the ssl key password for the configured ssl_key on startup.

       --build-options
              Show Dovecot's build options and exit successfully.

       --help Print a usage message to stdout and exit successfully.

       --hostdomain
              Shows the current host.domain name of the system.  If the domain lookup should fail
              for some reason, only the hostname will be shown.

       --version
              Show Dovecot's version and exit successfully.

COMMANDS
       reload Force dovecot to reload its configuration.

       stop   Shutdown dovecot and all its child processes.

       When  shutdown_clients  is  set to no, existing sessions will continue to use the old set‐
       tings, after a dovecot reload.  Also all sessions will keep alive after a dovecot stop.
       By default all active sessions will be shut down.

SIGNALS
       Dovecot handles the following signals as described:

       HUP    Force dovecot to reload its configuration.

       INT    Shutdown dovecot and all its child processes.

       TERM   Shutdown dovecot and all its child processes.

       USR1   Force dovecot to reopen  all  configured  log  files  (log_path,  info_log_path and
              debug_log_path).

       The signals ALARM and PIPE are ignored.

FILES
       /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
              Dovecot's main configuration file.

       /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext
              Dovecot's LDAP authdb/userdb module configuration file.

       /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext
              Dovecot's SQL authdb/userdb module configuration file.

       /etc/dovecot/dovecot-dict-sql.conf.ext
              Dovecot's dict configuration with SQL-backend.

       /etc/dovecot/conf.d/auth-*-conf.ext
              Configuration files of different authentication modules.

       /etc/dovecot/conf.d/*.conf
              Configuration files of different services and settings.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report  bugs,  including  doveconf  -n  output, to the Dovecot Mailing List <dovecot@dove‐
       cot.org>.  Information about reporting bugs  is  available  at:  http://dovecot.org/bugre‐
       port.html

AUTHOR
       Dovecot  <http://dovecot.org>  and  its  manual  pages were written by the Dovecot authors
       <http://dovecot.org/doc/AUTHORS>, mainly Timo Sirainen <tss at iki.fi>, and  are  licensed
       under the terms of the MIT and LGPLv2.1 licenses, see <http://dovecot.org/doc/COPYING> for
       details.

SEE ALSO
       doveadm(1), doveconf(1), dovecot-lda(1), dsync(1)



Dovecot v2.2                                2013-08-06                                 DOVECOT(1)