1PIGEONHOLE(7) Pigeonhole PIGEONHOLE(7)
2
6 pigeonhole - Overview of the Pigeonhole project's Sieve support for the
7 Dovecot secure IMAP and POP3 server
8
10 The Pigeonhole project <http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org> adds support for
11 the Sieve language (RFC 5228) and the ManageSieve protocol (RFC 5804)
12 to the Dovecot Secure IMAP and POP3 Server (dovecot(1)). In the literal
13 sense, a pigeonhole is a a hole or recess inside a dovecot for pigeons
14 to nest in. It is, however, also the name for one of a series of
15 small, open compartments in a cabinet used for filing or sorting mail.
16 As a verb, it describes the act of putting an item into one of those
17 pigeonholes. The name "Pigeonhole" therefore well describes an impor‐
18 tant part of the functionality that this project adds to Dovecot: sort‐
19 ing and filing e-mail messages.
20 The Sieve language is used to specify how e-mail needs to be processed.
22 By writing Sieve scripts, users can customize how messages are deliv‐
23 ered, e.g. whether they are forwarded or stored in special folders.
24 Unwanted messages can be discarded or rejected, and, when the user is
25 not available, the Sieve interpreter can send an automated reply. Above
26 all, the Sieve language is meant to be simple, extensible and system
27 independent. And, unlike most other mail filtering script languages, it
28 does not allow users to execute arbitrary programs. This is particu‐
29 larly useful to prevent virtual users from having full access to the
30 mail store. The intention of the language is to make it impossible for
31 users to do anything more complex (and dangerous) than write simple
32 mail filters.
33 Using the ManageSieve protocol, users can upload their Sieve scripts
35 remotely, without needing direct filesystem access through FTP or SCP.
36 Additionally, a ManageSieve server always makes sure that uploaded
37 scripts are valid, preventing compile failures at mail delivery.
38 The Pigeonhole project provides the following items:
40 · The LDA Sieve plugin for Dovecot's Local Delivery Agent (LDA)
42 (dovecot-lda(1)) that facilitates the actual Sieve filtering upon
43 delivery.
44 · The ManageSieve Service that implements the ManageSieve protocol
46 through which users can remotely manage Sieve scripts on the
47 server.
48 · Command line tools that provide the means to manually compile, ana‐
50 lyse and test Sieve scripts.
51 The functionality and configuration of the LDA Sieve plugin and the
53 ManageSieve service is described in detail in the README and INSTALL
54 files contained in the Pigeonhole package and in the Dovecot Wiki
55 <http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Pigeonhole>.
56 The following command line tools are available:
58 sievec(1)
60 Compiles Sieve scripts into a binary representation for later
61 execution.
62 sieve-test(1)
64 The universal Sieve test tool for testing the effect of a Sieve
65 script on a particular message.
66 sieve-dump(1)
68 Dumps the content of a Sieve binary file for (development)
69 debugging purposes.
70
72 Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List
73 <dovecot@dovecot.org>. Information about reporting Dovecot and Pigeon‐
74 hole bugs is available at: http://dovecot.org/bugreport.html
75
77 Pigeonhole <http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org> and its manual pages were
78 written by the Pigeonhole authors <http://pigeonhole.dove‐
79 cot.org/doc/AUTHORS>, mainly Stephan Bosch <stephan at rename-it.nl>,
80 and are licensed under the terms of the LGPLv2.1 license, which is the
81 same license as Dovecot, see <http://dovecot.org/doc/COPYING> for
82 details.
83
85 dovecot(1), dovecot-lda(1), sieve-dump(1), sieve-test(1), sievec(1)
86 Additional resources:
88 Dovecot website
90 http://www.dovecot.org
91 Dovecot v2.0 Wiki
93 http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Pigeonhole
94 Pigeonhole website
96 http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org
97Pigeonhole for Dovecot v2.0 2010-08-23 PIGEONHOLE(7)