Linux Tutorials on the topic “dovecot”

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What is Dovecot?

Dovecot is an open source IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) and POP3 (Post Office Protocol) server that was initially released in 2002 by Timo Sirainen. The mailserver was developed with security in mind, while performance and easy set-up were also primary concerns. Dovecot currently enjoys a large global market success, being the mail server of choice for almost 60% of all IMAP servers.

The popular mail server is commonly used in Linux, Solaris, BSD, and Mac OSX systems and it supports IMAP v4 (first revision) with SORT, THREAD and IDLE extensions, POP v3, SSL, TLS, shared mailboxes, configurable ACL files and Maildir++ quota. It is also one of the three fully compliant servers according to IMAPWiki tests, and the only one that is open source. Dovecot is especially friendly to the user as it tries to offer easily understandable but technically precise error messages, features automatically fixing of broken index files, supports self-optimization methods and user-friendly configuration tools. It is indicative of the quality of the particular software that Apple includes it in Mac OSX Server v10.6.

Dovecot follows a different development method when it comes to security. Instead of fixing holes after testing rounds or user reports, the developer offers 1000 Euros to every person that finds a security hole. The tool also supports easy and seamless migration from other IMAP and POP3 server tools without any impact to the users, offers integration with Postfix and Exim for SMTP authentication, and supports many different authentication databases and mechanisms such as the DIGEST-MD5, GSSAPI, RPA and external SASL.

The extendability possibilities for Dovecot are especially wide as well. There are many Dovecot plugins that are officially tested, approved, maintained and distributed by Dovecot developers, and there are also countless Dovecot plugins found in external databases which are not officially supported. Parts of Dovecot's core functionality like the quota and the ACL support are actually implemented through plugins. Thanks to the collection of these plugins, users can further add support for new mailbox formats, add their own data into index files, modify existing behavior and add new commands.

 

HowtoForge and Dovecot

While HowtoForge has some tutorials that show how to install and configure Dovecot on Nginx, Apache and how to make it collaborate with Postfix, the list isn't long just yet. For help on all things Dovecot, you can visit our dedicated forums and seek for expert advice from the helpful users that hang out there.