NAME

       pigeonhole  -  Overview  of  the  Pigeonhole project's Sieve support for the Dovecot secure IMAP and POP3
       server

DESCRIPTION

       The Pigeonhole project <http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org> adds support for the Sieve language (RFC 5228) and
       the  ManageSieve  protocol  (RFC  5804)  to  the Dovecot Secure IMAP and POP3 Server (dovecot(1)). In the
       literal sense, a pigeonhole is a a hole or recess inside a dovecot  for  pigeons  to  nest  in.   It  is,
       however,  also  the  name for one of a series of small, open compartments in a cabinet used for filing or
       sorting mail. As a verb, it describes the act of putting an item into one of those pigeonholes. The  name
       "Pigeonhole"  therefore  well  describes an important part of the functionality that this project adds to
       Dovecot: sorting and filing e-mail messages.

       The Sieve language is used to specify how e-mail needs to be processed. By writing Sieve  scripts,  users
       can  customize how messages are delivered, e.g.  whether they are forwarded or stored in special folders.
       Unwanted messages can be discarded  or  rejected,  and,  when  the  user  is  not  available,  the  Sieve
       interpreter  can send an automated reply. Above all, the Sieve language is meant to be simple, extensible
       and system independent. And, unlike most other mail filtering script languages, it does not  allow  users
       to  execute  arbitrary  programs.  This  is particularly useful to prevent virtual users from having full
       access to the mail store. The intention of the language is to make it impossible for users to do anything
       more complex (and dangerous) than write simple mail filters.

       Using  the  ManageSieve  protocol,  users can upload their Sieve scripts remotely, without needing direct
       filesystem access through FTP or SCP. Additionally, a ManageSieve server always makes sure that  uploaded
       scripts are valid, preventing compile failures at mail delivery.

       The Pigeonhole project provides the following items:

       •   The  LDA  Sieve plugin for Dovecot's Local Delivery Agent (LDA) (dovecot-lda(1)) that facilitates the
           actual Sieve filtering upon delivery.

       •   The ManageSieve service that implements the ManageSieve protocol through  which  users  can  remotely
           manage Sieve scripts on the server.

       •   A  plugin  for Dovecot's doveadm(1) command line tool that adds new the new doveadm-sieve(1) commands
           for management of Sieve filtering.

       The functionality and configuration of the LDA Sieve plugin and the ManageSieve service is  described  in
       detail  in  the  README  and  INSTALL  files  contained in the Pigeonhole package and in the Dovecot Wiki
       <http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Pigeonhole>.

       The following command line tools are available outside of doveadm:

       sievec(1)
              Compiles Sieve scripts into a binary representation for later execution.

       sieve-test(1)
              The universal Sieve test tool for testing the effect of a Sieve script on a particular message.

       sieve-filter(1)
              Filters all messages in a particular source mailbox through a Sieve script.

       sieve-dump(1)
              Dumps the content of a Sieve binary file for (development) debugging purposes.

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

       Pigeonhole  <http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org>  and  its manual pages were written by the Pigeonhole authors
       <http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org/doc/AUTHORS>, mainly Stephan Bosch  <stephan  at  rename-it.nl>,  and  are
       licensed  under  the  terms  of  the  LGPLv2.1  license,  which  is  the  same  license  as  Dovecot, see
       <http://dovecot.org/doc/COPYING> for details.

SEE ALSO

       dovecot(1), dovecot-lda(1), doveadm(1), doveadm-sieve(1), sieve-dump(1), sieve-test(1),  sieve-filter(1),
       sievec(1)

       Additional resources:

       Dovecot website
              http://www.dovecot.org

       Dovecot v2.x Wiki
              http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Pigeonhole

       Pigeonhole website
              http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org