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 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.

       --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  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 available 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 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)