huschi.net

()                                  Dovecot                                 ()
dovecot-lda - Dovecot's local mail delivery agent
SYNOPSIS
       dovecot-lda [-ek] [-a address] [-c config_file] [-d username] [-f enve-
       lope_sender] [-m mailbox] [-o setting=value] [-p path] [-r address]
DESCRIPTION
       The dovecot-lda is a local mail delivery agent which takes mail from an
       MTA  and  delivers  it to a user's mailbox, while keeping Dovecot index
       files up to date.
       Main features of the dovecot-lda are:
       o   Mailbox indexing during mail  delivery,  providing  faster  mailbox
           access later
       o   Quota enforcing by the quota plugin
       o   Sieve language support by the Pigeonhole sieve plugin
OPTIONS
       Options accepted by dovecot-lda:
       -a address
           Destination  address  (e.g.  user+ext@domain).  If  not  specified,
           default is based on the lda_original_recipient_header setting  set-
           ting.
       -c config_file
           Alternative configuration file path.
       -d username
           Destination  username.  If given, the user information is looked up
           from userdb. Typically used with virtual users, but not necessarily
           with system users.
       -e
           If  mail  gets  rejected,  write the rejection reason to stderr and
           exit with status 77 (EX_NOPERM). The default is to send a rejection
           mail ourself.
       -f envelope_sender
           Envelope  sender  address. If not specified and message data begins
           with a valid mbox-style "From " line, the address is taken from it.
       -k
           Don't clear all environment at startup.
       -m mailbox
           Destination mailbox (default is  INBOX).  If  the  mailbox  doesn't
           exist,  it  will not be created (unless lda_mailbox_autocreate set-
           ting). If a message couldn't be saved to the mailbox for  any  rea-
           son, it's delivered to INBOX instead.
               o   If  Sieve  plugin is used, this mailbox is used as the keep
                   action's mailbox. It's also  used  if  there  is  no  Sieve
                   script or if the script fails for some reason.
               o   Deliveries  to  namespace  prefix will result in saving the
                   mail to INBOX instead. For example if you have Mail/ names-
                   pace, this allows you to specify dovecot-lda -m Mail/$mail-
                   box where mail is stored to Mail/$mailbox or  to  INBOX  if
                   $mailbox is empty.
               o   The  mailbox  name is specified the same as it's visible in
                   IMAP client. For example if you've a Maildir with .box.sub/
                   directory, your namespace configuration is namespace_prefix
                   setting and namespace_separator setting, the correct way to
                   deliver mail there is to use -m INBOX/box/sub
       -o setting=value
           Overrides  the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
           and from the userdb with the given value. In order to override mul-
           tiple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times.
       -p path
           Path  to the mail to be delivered instead of reading from stdin. If
           using maildir the file is hard linked to the destination if  possi-
           ble.  This  allows  a single mail to be delivered to multiple users
           using hard links, but  currently  it  also  prevents  deliver  from
           updating  cache  file  so it shouldn't be used unless really neces-
           sary.
       -r address
           Final envelope recipient address. Defaults to -a address,  but  may
           differ  if,  e.g.,  aliases  are  used or when dropping the +detail
           part.
EXIT STATUS
       dovecot-lda will exit with one of the following values:
       0
           Delivery was successful. (EX_OK)
       64
           Invalid parameter given. (EX_USAGE)
       67
           Recipient user not known. (EX_NOUSER)
       77
           -e option was used and mail was rejected.  Typically  this  happens
           when user is over quota and quota_full_tempfail = no is configured.
           (EX_NOPERM)
       75
           A temporary failure. This is returned for almost all failures.  See
           the log file for details. (EX_TEMPFAIL)
FILES
       /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
           Dovecot's main configuration file.
       /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
           Mailbox locations and namespaces.
       /etc/dovecot/conf.d/15-lda.conf
           LDA specific settings.
       /etc/dovecot/conf.d/90-plugin.conf
           Plugin specific settings.
       /etc/dovecot/conf.d/90-quota.conf
           Quota configuration.
REPORTING BUGS
       Report  bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List
       <dovecot AT dovecot.org>. Information about reporting  bugs  is  available
       at: <https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html>;
SEE ALSO
       doveadm(1)
       Related MTA specific documentation:
       o   Postfix:
           o   postconf(5), transport(5), pipe(8)
       o   Exim:
           o   <https://exim.org/exim-html-cur-
               rent/doc/html/spec_html/ch16.html>
           o   <https://exim.org/exim-html-cur-
               rent/doc/html/spec_html/ch24.html>
           o   <https://exim.org/exim-html-cur-
               rent/doc/html/spec_html/ch29.html>
e5ac02a                            May 2026                                 ()