Man page - dovecot-lda(1)
Packages contas this manual
- doveadm-compress-connect(1)
- doveadm-mail-fs(1)
- doveadm-proxy(1)
- doveadm-save(1)
- doveadm-instance(1)
- deliver(1)
- doveadm-service-stop(1)
- doveadm-purge(1)
- doveadm-help(1)
- doveadm-who(1)
- doveadm-auth(1)
- doveadm-altmove(1)
- doveadm-quota(1)
- maildirmake.dovecot(1)
- doveadm-flags(1)
- doveadm-process-status(1)
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- doveadm-service-status(1)
- doveadm-stats(1)
- doveadm-exec(1)
- doveadm-force-resync(1)
- doveadm-kick(1)
- doveadm-mailbox(1)
- doveadm-user(1)
- doveadm-sync(1)
- doveadm-stop(1)
- doveadm-indexer(1)
- doveadm(1)
- dovecot(1)
- doveadm-index(1)
- doveadm-import(1)
- doveadm-search(1)
- dovecot-lda(1)
- doveadm-copy(1)
- pigeonhole(7)
- doveadm-dump(1)
- doveconf(1)
- doveadm-config(1)
- doveadm-mail-dict(1)
- doveadm-fetch(1)
- doveadm-fts(1)
- doveadm-log(1)
- doveadm-rebuild(1)
- doveadm-mailbox-cryptokey(1)
- doveadm-dict(1)
- doveadm-move(1)
- doveadm-expunge(1)
- doveadm-sieve(1)
- doveadm-reload(1)
- doveadm-backup(1)
- doveadm-fs(1)
apt-get install dovecot-core
Manual
| () | Dovecot | () |
SYNOPSIS
dovecot-lda [-ek] [-a address] [-c config_file] [-d username] [-f envelope_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:
- Mailbox indexing during mail delivery, providing faster mailbox access later
- Quota enforcing by the quota plugin
- 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 setting.
-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 setting). If a message couldn't be saved to the mailbox for any reason, it's delivered to INBOX instead.
- 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.
- Deliveries to namespace prefix will result in saving the mail to INBOX instead. For example if you have Mail/ namespace, this allows you to specify dovecot-lda -m Mail/$mailbox where mail is stored to Mail/$mailbox or to INBOX if $mailbox is empty.
- 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 multiple 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 possible. 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 necessary.
-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@dovecot.org⟩. Information about reporting bugs is available at: https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html
SEE ALSO
doveadm(1)
Related MTA specific documentation:
- •
- Postfix:
- •
- postconf(5), transport(5), pipe(8)
- •
- Exim:
- https://exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch16.html
- https://exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch24.html
- https://exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch29.html
| March 2026 | 2b97ab9 |