• HowTo
• EximAndDovecotSASL

Exim and Dovecot SASL

Exim v4.64+ users can use Dovecot SASL instead of Cyrus SASL for authenticating SMTP clients.

dovecot.conf

auth default {
  mechanisms = plain login
  # .. passdb and userdb configuration ..
  socket listen {
    client {
      path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-client
      mode = 0666
    }
    # deliver and some other programs need also auth-master:
    #master {
    #  path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
    #  mode = 0600
    #}
  }
}

exim.conf

Create authenticators for Dovecot:

dovecot_login:
  driver = dovecot
  public_name = LOGIN
  server_socket = /var/run/dovecot/auth-client
# setting server_set_id might break several headers in mails sent by authenticated smtp. So be careful.
  server_set_id = $auth1

dovecot_plain:
  driver = dovecot
  public_name = PLAIN
  server_socket = /var/run/dovecot/auth-client
  server_set_id = $auth1