Doveadm protocol
================

See also <doveadm HTTP protocol> [Design.DoveadmProtocol.HTTP.txt].

doveadm-server can be accessed via UNIX sockets or TCP protocol (by adding
inet_listener to doveadm service). The protocol looks like:

Initial handshake from client to server:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
C: VERSION      doveadm-server  1       0
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that the spaces you see are TABs. All the fields are TAB-separated. The
server will send you back either:

 * "+" means you are preauthenticated and can start sending commands. This
   happens when connecting to the UNIX socket.
 * "-" means you need to authenticate first.

Authentication
--------------

The authentication is done with a regular SASL PLAIN authentication, i.e.
"PLAIN<tab>base64(\0username\0password)". Currently the username must be
"doveadm". For example for user=doveadm, password=secret use:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
C: PLAIN        AGRvdmVhZG0Ac2VjcmV0
S: +
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Running commands
----------------

The actual commands are in format: flags<tab>username<tab>command
name[<tab>parameter[<tab>parameter2...]], where the flags can be either empty,
"v" (verbose) or "D" (debug). Note that if the command name has spaces, they
are sent as spaces instead of as tabs (e.g. "quota get", not "quota<tab>get").
So for example to get a quota for user tss:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:      tss     quota get
S: user STORAGE 1814    -       0       user    MESSAGE 6       -       0      

S: +
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The storage values are all given in kilobytes.

The server replies using the same fields TAB-separated as what a regular
doveadm command sends. The reply itself ends with LF. So if the reply is large,
it may return a very long line as a reply. After the reply follows a status
line:

 * "+" = success.
    * In future the "+" may be followed by more text, for now you should just
      ignore those.
 * "-" = failed (the error was probably logged to Dovecot's error log)
    * "-NOUSER" = the user doesn't exist
    * Other "-SOMETHING" errors may be added in future.

Available commands
------------------

The command names and output are exactly the same as what regular doveadm
commands on command line do. Currently only "mail commands" are available via
doveadm protocol, but this will change in future.

You can use the doveadm itself to find out what the output format will look
like. For example:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
doveadm -f tab search mailbox inbox 1:2
mailbox-guid    uid
fa8cb722dfad9c52b62600007049b30b        125159
fa8cb722dfad9c52b62600007049b30b        125160
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are two fields, "mailbox-guid" and "uid" in the output. The title names
won't be sent via doveadm protocol, but everything else will be sent in one
line. So in the above case the protocol output will be:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
fa8cb722dfad9c52b62600007049b30b<tab>125159<tab>fa8cb722dfad9c52b62600007049b30b<tab>125160
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Example Clients
---------------

 * Perl: Net::Doveadm [https://metacpan.org/pod/Net::Doveadm]
 * See also HTTP protocol-based clients in <Design.DoveadmProtocol.HTTP.txt>

(This file was created from the wiki on 2019-06-19 12:42)
