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

 * Virtual users configured in '/etc/dovecot/passwd' file
 * Assuming an unmodified Dovecot v1.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* user and *dovecot* group if they don't exist yet. This is
   an unprivileged user for Dovecot's internal use. It doesn'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 <deliver> [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 'dovecot-example.conf' as the base and make the
same modifications to it.

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

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Remove pop3 things if you don't want them
protocols = imap imaps pop3 pop3s

# 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 # v1.2+, for older versions use: ssl_disable = yes
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 = %08Xu%08Xv

# Authentication configuration:
auth_verbose = yes

auth default {
  mechanisms = plain
  passdb passwd-file {
    args = /etc/dovecot/passwd
  }
  userdb 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.

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 SSHA would be a
pretty strong scheme. You can create them using 'dovecotpw' utility, for
example:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
dovecotpw -s ssha
Enter new password: foo
Retype new password: foo
{SSHA}DNODS3ZrOq1bu2MasNk79LxHhlU9iI03
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that you won't get the same output after {SSHA} as above, because Dovecot
uses random salts when creating the SSHA 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:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
joe:{SSHA}DNODS3ZrOq1bu2MasNk79LxHhlU9iI03
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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's <deliver> [LDA.txt]. Using deliver gives you better performance
because it updates Dovecot's index files while saving the mails. See <LDA.txt>
for how to configure this. 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':

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
protocol imap {
  mail_plugins = quota imap_quota
}
protocol pop3 {
  mail_plugins = quota
}
protocol lda {
  # .. other required lda settings ..
  mail_plugins = quota
}
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
joe:{PLAIN}pass::::::userdb_quota=maildir:storage=102400
jane:{PLAIN}pass::::::userdb_quota=maildir:storage=204800
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 2011-11-16 14:09)