Friday, December 17, 2010

Configuring Dovecot as a POP3 or IMAP server

     Dovecot can be used to retrieve mail using pop3 or imap protocols.  The minimal configuration that will get you started is pretty simple and straight forward.

First install the package, for RHEL based distros, it is dovecot.

yum install dovecot


The main configuration file for dovecot is /etc/dovecot.conf ( location changes based on you installation, file name remains as dovecot.conf )

## Dovecot supports pop3,pop3s,imap and imaps protocols. 
## Enable whichever you require.
protocols = imap pop3

## If you are using conventional unix style mboxes under
## /var/spool/mail/<username> for storing mail
mail_location = mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u


That is it, you can start using dovecot sevice.  Edit and save the file and restart service.

sudo /usr/sbin/service dovecot restart

To test if dovecot is working, use instructions from following tutorial

Testing your POP3 server with telnet

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