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 --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 excel-
       lent choice for both small and large installations.  It's fast, simple to set up, requires no special administration and it uses very  lit-
       tle memory.

OPTIONS

       -a     Dump all configuration settings to stdout and exit successfully.	The same as doveconf -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 doveconf -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.

       --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 settings, 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@dovecot.org>.  Information about reporting bugs	is  avail-
       able at: http://dovecot.org/bugreport.html

AUTHOR

       Dovecot	<http://dovecot.org>  and  its manual pages were written by the Dovecot authors <http://dovecot.org/doc/AUTHORS>, mainly Timo Sir-
       ainen <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 v2.1							    2010-07-02								DOVECOT(1)