Dovecot SSL configuration
=========================

The most important settings are:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ssl_disable = no
# Preferred permissions: root:root 0444
ssl_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/dovecot.pem
# Preferred permissions: root:root 0400
ssl_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/dovecot.pem
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The certificate file can be world-readable, since it doesn't contain anything
sensitive (in fact it's sent to each connecting SSL client). The key file's
permissions should be restricted to only root (and possibly ssl-certs group or
similar if your OS uses such). Dovecot opens both of these files while still
running as root, so you don't need to give Dovecot any special permissions to
read them (in fact:*do not give dovecot user any permissions to the key file*).

It's possible to keep the certificate and the key both in the same file:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Preferred permissions: root:root 0400
ssl_cert_file = /etc/ssl/dovecot.pem
ssl_key_file = /etc/ssl/dovecot.pem
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's also possible to use different certificates for IMAP and POP3:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
protocol imap {
  ssl_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/imap.pem
  ssl_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/imap.pem
}
protocol pop3 {
  ssl_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/pop3.pem
  ssl_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/pop3.pem
}
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Password protected key files
----------------------------

SSL key files may be password protected. There are two ways to provide Dovecot
with the password:

 1. 'ssl_key_password' setting. Note that dovecot.conf is by default
    world-readable, so you should restrict the permissions more if you do this.
    However note that if you're using<Dovecot LDA> [LDA.txt], it needs to be
    able to read dovecot.conf as whatever user it is running as.
 2. Starting Dovecot with 'dovecot -p' asks the password. It's not stored
    anywhere, so this method prevents Dovecot from starting automatically at
    startup.

Chained SSL certificates
------------------------

Put all the certificates in the 'ssl_cert_file' file. For example when using a
certificate signed by TDC the correct order is:

 1. Dovecot's public certificate
 2. TDC SSL Server CA
 3. TDC Internet Root CA
 4. Globalsign Partners CA

SSL security settings
---------------------

When Dovecot starts up for the first time, it generates new 512bit and 1024bit
Diffie Hellman parameters and saves them into
'<prefix>/var/lib/dovecot/ssl-parameters.ssl'. After the initial creation
they're by default regenerated every week. With newer computers the generation
shouldn't take more than a few seconds, but with older computers it can take as
long as half an hour. The extra security gained by the regeneration is quite
small, so with slower computers you might want to disable it:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ssl_parameters_regenerate = 0
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

By default Dovecot allows all but the "LOW" SSL ciphers. See
http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html for a list of the ciphers.
Disallowing more won't really gain any security for those using better ciphers,
but it does prevent people from accidentally using insecure  ciphers. You may
want to drop also the SSLv2 ciphers:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ssl_cipher_list = ALL:!LOW:!SSLv2
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

SSL verbosity
-------------

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
verbose_ssl = yes
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This will make Dovecot log all the problems it sees with SSL connections. Some
errors might be caused by dropped connections, so it could be quite noisy.

Client certificate verification/authentication
----------------------------------------------

If you want to require clients to present a valid SSL certificate, you'll need
these settings:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ssl_ca_file = /etc/ssl/ca.pem
ssl_verify_client_cert = yes

auth default {
  ssl_require_client_cert = yes
  #ssl_username_from_cert = yes
  ..
}
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The CA file should contain the CA certificate(s) followed by the matching
CRL(s). Note that the CRLs are required to exist.

With the above settings if a client connects which doesn't present a
certificate signed by one of the CAs in the 'ssl_ca_file', Dovecot won't let
the user log in.

You may also force the username to be taken from the certificate by setting
'ssl_username_from_cert = yes'. The username is taken from the subject's DN's
<CommonName.txt> field (using OpenSSL's X509_NAME_get_text_by_NID() function).
In the future it will be possible to configure where the username is taken.

You may also want to disable the password checking completely. Doing this
currently circumvents Dovecot's security model so it's not very recommended to
use it, but it is possible by making the<passdb> [PasswordDatabase.txt] return
a NULL/empty password depending on what passdb you use.

(This file was created from the wiki on 2007-06-15 04:42)