Dovecot is used to receive incoming emails on your server from Postfix. Dovecot is an open-source IMAP and POP3 Mail Server used for Linux and UNIX Operating Systems.
Following are the steps to install Dovecot on Centos.
We believe you have Postfix preinstalled. We are doing this configuration in Centos 6.
- Install Dovecot using the below command.
# sudo yum install dovecot
- Once it is installed, you need to configure the dovecot file. Open in vi editors and make changes as below.
# vi /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
protocols = imap pop3
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
- Now, we will configure the authentication process file at path /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-auth.conf. Again use vi editor and uncomment the following line.
auth_mechanisms = plain login
- To configure email location, we will add below line in 10-mail.conf file at /etc/dovecot/conf.d/ location.
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
- Now, we will configure UNIX socket for Postfix SMTP AUTH. To do this we will modify the file /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-master.conf and need to make changes as per the below image.
vi /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-master.conf
#unix_listener auth-userdb { #mode = 0600 #user = #group = #} # Postfix smtp-auth unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth { mode = 0666 user = postfix group = postfix }
- Open file 20-pop3.conf with below command.
vi /etc/dovecot/conf.d/20-pop3.conf
- Uncomment or add the below line if it is not there.
pop3_uidl_format = %08Xu%08Xv pop3_client_workarounds = outlook-no-nuls oe-ns-eoh
- Please use the below command to create a user. Here, we have used a test user.
sudo useradd test
- Create the mail directory for the test user.
sudo mkdir /home/test/Maildir
- Assign the Mail directory permission to the created user.
sudo chown test:test /home/test/Maildir sudo chmod -R 700 /home/test/Maildir
- Run below command to start dovecot service.
# sudo service dovecot start
- To Connect your email client to SMTP server, you will need to configure Postfix.
- Open the file /etc/postfix/main.cf using vi editor.
sud vi /etc/postfix/main.cf
- Add the below lines.
# authentication smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot smtpd_sasl_local_domain = $hostname broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth
- Restart the Postfix service.
# sudo service postfix restart
- You will need to allow the below ports in your firewall.
110,143,465,587,993,995