DOVEADM-LOG(1)

✨ DOVEADM-LOG ✨

okay bestie, welcome to doveadm-log — the part of the Dovecot manual that's all about your log files. this is the doveadm-log(1) page, and honestly? it's giving "find, test, or reopen" energy. that's literally the whole vibe. 💅

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🦋 NAME 🦋

doveadm-log — locate, test or reopen Dovecot's log files

ngl the name kinda says it all, but let's go anyway because there are details and details are the moment.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log errors [-s min_timestamp]

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log find [directory]

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log reopen

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log test

four little incantations. pick your fighter. 💖

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

so the doveadm log commands exist to locate and reopen the log files of dovecot(1). that's the job. that's what they do.

and because that wasn't enough main character energy, you can also test the configured targets of the log_path settings. so if you've ever been like "is this even going anywhere??" — yes, there's a command for that. slay. ✨

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👑 GLOBAL OPTIONS 👑

these are the global doveadm(1) options, shared across the whole doveadm situation:

• -D — turns on verbosity and debug messages. more noise, more truth.
• -O — do not read any config file, just use defaults. important bit: the dovecot_storage_version setting defaults to the latest version here, but you can override it with -o.
• -k — preserve the entire environment for doveadm, not just the import_environment setting.
• -v — enables verbosity, including a progress counter</>progress counter. (the little numbers going up? iconic.)
• -i instance-name — if you're running multiple Dovecot instances, pick which config file to use based on this instance name. see the instance_name setting for more on that.
• -c config-file — read configuration from the given config-file. by default it first reads the config socket, and then falls back to /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. you can also point this at the config socket of some instance running a compatible version. flexible fr fr.
• -o setting=value — overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf and from the userdb with the given value. want to override multiple settings? just pass -o multiple times, one per setting. no cap.

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💫 COMMANDS 💫

🍓 log errors

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log errors [-s min_timestamp]

the log errors command shows you the last errors and warnings — up to 1,000 of them. and here's the cute part: if no output is generated, that means no errors have occurred since the last start. silence = good news, bestie. 🫶

• -s min_timestamp — an integer value representing seconds since the epoch, aka a Unix timestamp. when you give a min_timestamp, doveadm(1) will only show errors that occurred since that point in time. time travel but make it logs.

🧚 log find

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log find [directory]

the log find command shows you the location of the log files, the ones dovecot(1) logs its messages to through syslogd(8). and if doveadm(1) couldn't find any log files on its own, no stress — you can specify the directory where your syslogd writes its log files. teamwork. 💖

🌈 log reopen

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log reopen

this one makes doveadm send a SIGUSR1 signal to the master process, which causes it to reopen all log files configured in the log_path, info_log_path and debug_log_path settings. those settings live in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-logging.conf.

the master process also signals the log process to do the same thing. this is mainly useful after manually rotating the log files — you know, the classic logrotate moment. 🔥

⭐ log test

doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] log test

this one makes doveadm write the message "This is Dovecot's priority log (timestamp)" to the configured log files. the priorities it uses are: debug, info, warning, error and fatal. so you get one of each. a little sampler platter of log levels. adorable. 🎀

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🌸 EXAMPLE 🌸

here's how you locate the log files used by dovecot(1):

doveadm log find

Looking for log files from /var/log
Debug: /var/log/dovecot.debug
Info: /var/log/mail.log
Warning: /var/log/mail.log
Error: /var/log/mail.log
Fatal: /var/log/mail.log

see how everything funnels into /var/log/mail.log except debug? yeah. that's the vibe check. 💅

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💀 REPORTING BUGS 💀

found a bug? (not me manifesting it, but like, hypothetically.) report it — including your doveconf -n output — to the Dovecot Mailing List at ⟨dovecot@dovecot.org⟩.

info about reporting bugs lives at: ⟨https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html⟩

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• doveadm(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was doveadm-log(1) from f979264, April 2026. go forth, find your logs, rotate them, reopen them, test them. main character sysadmin behaviour, periodt. 💅✨🎀