User Databases
==============

After a user has been successfully authenticated, Dovecot looks up the user's
userdb information. The userdb lookup is also done by <deliver> [LDA.txt] to
find out how to deliver mails for the user.

The user database lookup returns these fields:

 * *uid*: User's <UID> [UserIds.txt] (UNIX user ID)
 * *gid*: User's <GID> [UserIds.txt] (UNIX group ID)
 * *home*: <Home directory> [VirtualUsers.txt]. Although not required, it's
   highly recommended even for virtual users (see the link).
 * *mail*: <Mail location> [MailLocation.txt] (if needed to override the
   default 'mail_location' setting)
 * Optional <extra fields> [UserDatabase.ExtraFields.txt] which are passed to
   the IMAP/POP3 process in environment variables.

The user and <password databases> [PasswordDatabase.txt] may be the same or
they may be different depending on your needs. You can also have <multiple
databases> [Authentication.MultipleDatabases.txt].

Currently supported user databases are:

 * <Passwd> [AuthDatabase.Passwd.txt]: System users (NSS, '/etc/passwd', or
   similiar)
 * <Passwd-file> [AuthDatabase.PasswdFile.txt]: '/etc/passwd'-like file in
   specified location
 * <NSS> [UserDatabase.NSS.txt]: Name Service Switch (v1.1+)
 * <LDAP> [AuthDatabase.LDAP.txt]: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
 * <SQL> [AuthDatabase.SQL.txt]: SQL database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite)
 * <Static> [UserDatabase.Static.txt]: Userdb information generated from a
   given template
 * <VPopMail> [AuthDatabase.VPopMail.txt]: External software used to handle
   virtual domains
 * <Prefetch> [UserDatabase.Prefetch.txt]: This assumes that the passdb already
   returned also all the required user database information

(This file was created from the wiki on 2011-05-11 04:42)
