Tag: imap

Dovecot Cheat Sheet

Just a collection of often-used commands with the IMAP server Dovecot, that will grow over time. It is not a complete Dovecot set-up guide.

Dovecot Add Users

This works only when using the Dovecot-internal user database. In my case, this is the file /etc/dovecot/users. Add the following helper script and save it as /usr/local/bin/dovecot_add_user.sh. Change the variable DOVECOT_PWD_FILE or the password hashing scheme SHA512-CRYPT if required. It needs to match the configuration in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/auth-passwdfile.conf.ext. 

#!/bin/bash
# Helper script to add new users to Dovecot internal user database.
DOVECOT_PWD_FILE="/etc/dovecot/users"

[ $# > 0 ] || exit 1

echo $1:$(doveadm pw -s SHA512-CRYPT) | tee -a $DOVECOT_PWD_FILE

Set the executable bit:

chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/dovecot_add_user.sh

Add a new user like this:

dovecot_add_user.sh newuser@example.com

Allow Access to Shared Folder

Any steps to initially set up shared folders (in the shared/user@example.com/ namespace) are omitted.

The example below uses the following users:

  • owner@example.com – This user has permissions to grant access to the mailbox.
  • assistant@example.com – This user is granted access to the mailbox.
  • shared/user@example.com/INBOX – The mailbox that the assistant is granted access to. 
doveadm acl set -u owner@example.com shared/user@example.com/INBOX user=assistant@example.com lookup read write write-seen insert

With the permissions above, the assistant cannot delete mails, but can mark them as seen and answered. See man doveadm-acl for details.

Display Access to Shared Folder

This displays the access granted for a particular mailbox. 

doveadm acl rights -u owner@example.com shared/user@example.com/INBOX

Revoke Access to Shared Folder

This deletes an ACL on a particular mailbox. Afterwards the user assistant@example.com has no longer access to the specified mailbox. 

doveadm acl delete -u owner@example.com shared/user@example.com/INBOX assistant@example.com

Remove Corrupted Message File

With sdbox mailbox format, if the logs indicate that a certain file is corrupted and cannot be read, here is how to get rid of this message:

doveadm expunge -u user@example.com MAILBOX INBOX UID 35835

35835 in the example above is the ID of the corrupted file as seen in the logs. It is prefixed by u. like u.35835.