.\" Copyright (c) 2010 Dovecot authors, see the included COPYING file
.TH DOVECOT\-LDA 1M "2011-01-16" "Dovecot v2.2" "Dovecot"
.SH NAME
dovecot lda \- Dovecot\'s local mail delivery agent
.\"------------------------------------------------------------------------
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nh
.na
.HP
\" ./master-options-short.inc
\fBdovecot\-lda\fR [\-c\ \fIfile\fR|\-i\ \fIinstance\fR] [\-k] [\-L] [\-O] [\-o\ \fIsetting\fB=\fIvalue\fR]...  [\-a\ \fIaddress\fR] [\-d\ \fIusername\fR] [\-e] [\-f\ \fIenvelope_sender\fR] [\-m\ \fImailbox\fR] [\-p\ \fIpath\fR]
.ad
.hy
.\"------------------------------------------------------------------------
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B 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.
.PP
Main features of the
.B dovecot\-lda
are:
.IP * 2
Mailbox indexing during mail delivery, providing faster mailbox access
later.
.IP *
Quota enforcing by the quota plugin.
.IP *
Sieve language support by the Pigeonhole sieve plugin.
.SH OPTIONS
Common options:

\" ./master-options.inc

\" vim: ts=4 sw=4 filetype=nroff
.TP
.BI \-c\  file
Read configuration from the given \fIfile\fR.  By default
\fI/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf\fR will be used.

.TP
.BI \-i\  instance
Get the configuration from the instance with the name \fIinstance\fR.

.TP
.B \-k
Keep environment, i.e. when executing a new process do not explicitly set 
the environment variables HOME, USER and when reading configurations, don\'t
overwrite currently set environment variables with corresponding settings.
Usually used internally, only.

.TP
.B \-L
Log directly.

.TP
.B \-O
Don\'t read settings, but use whatever is in the environment.

.TP
.BI \-o\  setting = value
Overrides the \fIsetting\fR from the current configuration with the given
\fIvalue\fR (can be specified multiple times). E.g. with \-o dsync_alt_char=c
one is able to overwrite the character to use as an replacement for all invalid
characters encountered within a mailbox name (per default \'\fB_\fR').

.P
Command specific options:

.TP
.BI \-a\  address
Destination address (e.g. user+ext@domain). Default is the same
as \fIusername\fR.

.TP
.BI \-d\  username
Destination user name.
If given, the user information is looked up from userdb.
Typically used with virtual users, but not necessarily with system users.

.TP
.B \-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.

.TP
.BI \-f\  envelope_sender
Envelope sender address.

.TP
.BI \-m\  mailbox
Destination mailbox (default is \fBINBOX\fR).  If the mailbox doesn\'t exist,
it will not be created (unless the \fBlda_mailbox_autocreate\fR setting is
set to \fByes\fR).  If a message couldn\'t be saved to the \fImailbox\fR
for any reason, it\'s delivered to \fBINBOX\fR instead.

.TP
.BI \-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.
.\"------------------------------------------------------------------------
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
.TP 4
.B 0
Delivery was successful. (EX_OK)
.TP
.B 64
Invalid parameter given. (EX_USAGE)
.TP
.B 77
.B \-e
option was used and mail was rejected.
Typically this happens when user is over quota
and \fBquota_full_tempfail = no\fR is configured. (EX_NOPERM)
.TP
.B 75
A temporary failure. This is returned for almost all failures. See the log
file for details. (EX_TEMPFAIL)
.\"------------------------------------------------------------------------
.SH FILES
.TP
.I /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
Dovecot\'s main configuration file.
.TP
.I /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10\-mail.conf
Mailbox locations and namespaces.
.TP
.I /etc/dovecot/conf.d/15\-lda.conf
LDA specific settings.
.TP
.I /etc/dovecot/conf.d/90\-plugin.conf
Plugin specific settings.
.TP
.I /etc/dovecot/conf.d/90\-quota.conf
Quota configuration.
.\"------------------------------------------------------------------------
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR doveadm (1M),
.BR dovecot (1M),
.BR doveconf (1M),
.BR dsync (1M)
.PP