Man page - doveadm-log(1)

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Manual

DOVEADM-LOG(1) Dovecot DOVEADM-LOG(1)

doveadm-log - Locate, test or reopen Dovecot's log files

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log errors [-s min_timestamp]

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log find [directory]

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log reopen

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log test

The doveadm log commands are used to locate and reopen the log files of dovecot(1). It's also possible to test the configured targets of the log_path settings.

Global doveadm(1) options:

-D

Enables verbosity and debug messages.

-O

Do not read any config file, just use defaults. The dovecot_storage_version setting defaults to the latest version, but can be overridden with -o.

-k

Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not just import_environment setting.

-v

Enables verbosity, including progress counter.

-i instance-name

If using multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based on this instance name.

See instance_name setting for more information.

-c config-file

Read configuration from the given config-file. By default it first reads config socket, and then falls back to /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. You can also point this to config socket of some instance running compatible version.

-o setting=value

Overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the given value. In order to override multiple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times.

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log errors [-s min_timestamp]

The log errors command is used to show the last - up to 1,000 - errors and warnings. If no output is generated, no errors have occurred since the last start.

-s min_timestamp

An integer value, representing seconds since the epoch - also known as Unix timestamp. When a min_timestamp was given, doveadm(1) will only show errors occurred since that point in time.

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log find [directory]

The log find command is used to show the location of the log files, to which dovecot(1) logs its messages through syslogd (8) and doveadm(1) could not find any log files, you can specify the directory where your syslogd writes its log files.

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log reopen

This command causes doveadm to send a SIGUSR1 signal to master process, which causes it to reopen all log files configured in the log_path, info_log_path and debug_log_path settings. These settings are configured in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-logging.conf.

The master process also signals the log process to do the same. This is mainly useful after manually rotating the log files.

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log test

This command causes doveadm to write the message "This is Dovecot's priority log (timestamp)" to the configured log files. The used priorities are: debug, info, warning, error and fatal.

This example shows how to locate the log files used by dovecot(1):

doveadm log find

Looking for log files from /var/log
Debug: /var/log/dovecot.debug
Info: /var/log/mail.log
Warning: /var/log/mail.log
Error: /var/log/mail.log
Fatal: /var/log/mail.log

Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List ⟨dovecot@dovecot.org⟩. Information about reporting bugs is available at: https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html

doveadm(1)

March 2026 2b97ab9