MKIMAPDCERT(8)

📦
version 6.0.5+2.0.6 · 4 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 MKIMAPDCERT(8) 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual for mkimapdcert, from section 8 of the manual (that's the sysadmin-y one), and the person behind it is S. Varshavchik. sit down, grab a matcha, we're making certificates ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

mkimapdcert — create a test SSL certificate for IMAP over SSL

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

/usr/sbin/mkimapdcert

no args. no flags. it just goes. main character energy fr 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the tea: IMAP over SSL needs a valid, signed X.509 certificate. not a vibe, an actual certificate. and the default place it lives is /etc/courier/imapd.pem. 🎀

mkimapdcert generates a self-signed X.509 certificate, mostly for testing. that's it, that's the whole job. if you're doing this for production, lowkey listen up: the X.509 certificate has to be signed by a recognized certificate authority, otherwise mail clients simply will not accept it. periodt. 🙈

also, /etc/courier/imapd.pem must be owned by the courier user and must have no group or world permissions. mkimapdcert will enforce this for you, she's on top of it 👑

and to prevent an unfortunate accident 😭 mkimapdcert will not work if /etc/courier/imapd.pem already exists. no touching. she said no.

heads up: mkimapdcert requires OpenSSL to be installed. if it's not there, it's not happening, bestie.

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • /etc/courier/imapd.pem — the X.509 certificate. this is the girl.
  • /etc/courier/imapd.cnf — parameters used by OpenSSL to create the X.509 certificate. the recipe, basically 🍓

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Sam Varshavchik — Author

🌈 NOTES 🌈

  1. courier(8) https://www.courier-mta.org/courier.html

that's the whole page, no crumbs left 🫶 this came to you from Courier Mail Server, dated 01/10/2026, and yes the header and footer both say MKIMAPDCERT(8) because she knows her name and she's obsessed with it 💅✨

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