doveadm-exec(1)

doveadm-exec1

Easily execute commands from dovecot's libexec directory.

Usage

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] exec binary [binary arguments]

Overview

This command allows administrators and local users to simply execute commands from within /usr/libexec/dovecot. So for example a logged in system user could start a pre-authenticated imap session, using the command: doveadm exec imap. An administrator would use the command doveadm exec imap -u username.

Options

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.

Arguments

binary

the name of an executable located in /usr/libexec/dovecot.

binary arguments

options and arguments, which will be passed through to the binary.

Examples

This example demonstrates how to deliver a message from a file to a user's mailbox.

doveadm exec dovecot-lda -d [email protected] -f [email protected] < ~/stuff/welcome.msg

Releases

7 releases since Debian 8 (Jessie); the text changed 4 times.

  1. 8
  2. 9
  3. 10–12
  4. 13
  5. Arch

-O since Debian 13 (Trixie); -c since Debian 13 (Trixie); -i since Debian 13 (Trixie); -k since Debian 13 (Trixie); -o since Debian 9 (Stretch).

Reporting bugs

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

SEE ALSO

doveadm(1)

From dovecot 2.4.5-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Also shipped by dovecot23. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.