User database extra fields
==========================

A user database lookup typically returns these fields:

 * 'uid': User's UNIX user ID which is used to access the user's mails. This is
   a required field.
 * 'gid': User's primary UNIX group ID which is used to access the user's
   mails. This is a required field.
 * 'home': Home directory for the user. Although not required, it's highly
   recommended even for virtual users since some files are stored in the user's
   home directory (currently only<deliver> [LDA.txt]). Note that the home
   directory can be even under the mail directory
   (eg.'/var/mail/%u/Maildir/home/')
 * 'mail': Specifies where to find mails for the user (eg.
   'maildir:/var/mail/user/Maildir'). Usually <mail_location>
   [MailLocation.txt] setting is enough to specify the mail location template,
   but if you can't use that for all users this field will override it.

Some less commonly used special fields are:

 * 'nice': Set the mail process's priority to be the given value.
 * 'chroot': Chroot to given directory. Overrides 'mail_chroot' setting in
   'dovecot.conf'.
 * 'system_user': If this is given, the user's groups are read from
   '/etc/group' (or wherever NSS is configured to taken them from). (This will
   some day be replaced by group ID lists given by userdbs.)

Most of the mail process settings in 'dovecot.conf' can be overridden by simply
returning the same setting with a different value. For example if
'dovecot.conf' has 'pop3_enable_last=no', but you want to enable it for a
specific user, you can simply return 'pop3_enable_last=yes' extra field.
However note that for boolean values the '=yes' value part is irrelevant,
returning 'pop3_enable_last=no' would enable the setting just the same.

Examples
--------

SQL
---

dovecot-sql.conf:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
user_query = SELECT home, uid, gid, 'Y' as pop3_enable_last, mail_plugins FROM
users WHERE userid = '%u'
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

LDAP
----

dovecot-ldap.conf:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
user_attrs =
homeDirectory=home,uidNumber=uid,gidNumber=gid,pop3_enable_last,mail_plugins
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

passwd-file
-----------

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
user:{plain}pass:1000:1000::/home/user::userdb_pop3_enable_last=y
userdb_quota=maildir:storage=102400
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

(This file was created from the wiki on 2007-06-15 04:42)