1PIGEONHOLE(7) Pigeonhole PIGEONHOLE(7)
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6 pigeonhole - Overview of the Pigeonhole project's Sieve support for the
7 Dovecot secure IMAP and POP3 server
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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.
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21 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.
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34 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.
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39 The Pigeonhole project provides the following items:
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41 · The LDA Sieve plugin for Dovecot's Local Delivery Agent (LDA)
42 (dovecot-lda(1)) that facilitates the actual Sieve filtering upon
43 delivery.
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45 · The ManageSieve service that implements the ManageSieve protocol
46 through which users can remotely manage Sieve scripts on the
47 server.
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49 · A plugin for Dovecot's doveadm(1) command line tool that adds new
50 the new doveadm-sieve(1) commands for management of Sieve filter‐
51 ing.
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53 The functionality and configuration of the LDA Sieve plugin and the
54 ManageSieve service is described in detail in the README and INSTALL
55 files contained in the Pigeonhole package and in the Dovecot Wiki
56 <http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Pigeonhole>.
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58 The following command line tools are available outside of doveadm:
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60 sievec(1)
61 Compiles Sieve scripts into a binary representation for later
62 execution.
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64 sieve-test(1)
65 The universal Sieve test tool for testing the effect of a Sieve
66 script on a particular message.
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68 sieve-filter(1)
69 Filters all messages in a particular source mailbox through a
70 Sieve script.
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72 sieve-dump(1)
73 Dumps the content of a Sieve binary file for (development)
74 debugging purposes.
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77 Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List
78 <dovecot@dovecot.org>. Information about reporting bugs is available
79 at: http://dovecot.org/bugreport.html
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82 Pigeonhole <http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org> and its manual pages were
83 written by the Pigeonhole authors <http://pigeonhole.dove‐
84 cot.org/doc/AUTHORS>, mainly Stephan Bosch <stephan at rename-it.nl>,
85 and are licensed under the terms of the LGPLv2.1 license, which is the
86 same license as Dovecot, see <http://dovecot.org/doc/COPYING> for
87 details.
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90 dovecot(1), dovecot-lda(1), doveadm(1), doveadm-sieve(1),
91 sieve-dump(1), sieve-test(1), sieve-filter(1), sievec(1)
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93 Additional resources:
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95 Dovecot website
96 http://www.dovecot.org
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98 Dovecot v2.x Wiki
99 http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Pigeonhole
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101 Pigeonhole website
102 http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org
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106Pigeonhole v0.5 for Dovecot v2.3 2017-12-18 PIGEONHOLE(7)