DOVEADM-KICK(1) Dovecot DOVEADM-KICK(1)
NAME
doveadm-kick - Disconnect users by user name and/or IP address
SYNOPSIS
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] kick [-a anvil_socket_path] [-f passdb_field]
[-h dest_host] user_mask
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] kick [-a anvil_socket_path] [-f passdb_field]
[-h dest_host] ip [/ bits]
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] kick [-a anvil_socket_path] [-f passdb_field]
[-h dest_host] user_mask ip [/ bits]
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] kick [-a anvil_socket_path] [-f passdb_field]
-h dest_host
DESCRIPTION
doveadm's kick command is used to disconnect users by user_mask and/or
the ip address, from which they are connected.
In the first form, all users, whose login name matches the user_mask ar-
gument, will be disconnected.
In the second form, all users, connected from the given IP address or
network range, will be disconnected.
In the third form, only users connected from the given IP address or
networks range and a matching login name will be disconnected.
In the last form, all proxy connections to the given destination host
are disconnected.
GLOBAL OPTIONS
Global doveadm(1)
-D
Enables verbosity and debug messages.
-O
Do not read any config file, just use defaults. The dovecot_stor-
age_version setting defaults to the latest version, but can be over-
ridden with
-k
Preserve entire environment for doveadm, not just import_environment
setting.
-v
Enables verbosity, including progress counter.
-i instance-name
If using multiple Dovecot instances, choose the config file based on
this instance name.
See instance_name setting for more information.
-c config-file
Read configuration from the given config-file. By default it first
reads config socket, and then falls back to /etc/dovecot/dove-
cot.conf. You can also point this to config socket of some instance
running compatible version.
-o setting=value
Overrides the configuration setting from /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
and from the userdb with the given value. In order to override mul-
tiple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times.
OPTIONS
-a anvil_socket_path
This option is used to specify an absolute path to an alternative
UNIX domain socket.
By default doveadm(1) will use the socket
-f passdb_field
Alternative username field to use for kicking, as returned by
passdb. Only the passdb fields beginning with the user_ prefix are
tracked.
-h dest_host
Disconnect proxy connections to the given dest_host.
ARGUMENTS
ip [/bits]
ip or ip / bits is the host or network, from which the users are
connected.
user_mask
Is a user's login name, or the alternative username (user_* field)
if the -f parameter is used. Depending on the configuration, a login
name may be for example jane or john@example.com. It's also possible
to use '*' and '?' wildcards (e.g. -u *@example.org).
EXAMPLE
If you don't want to disconnect all users at once, you can check who's
currently logged in. The first example demonstrates how to disconnect
all users whose login name is 3 characters long and begins with ba:
doveadm who -1 ja\*
username service pid ip
jane imap 8192 ::1
jano imap 8196 ::2
james imap 8203 2001:db8:543:2::1
doveadm kick jan?
# The connections for jane and jano are kicked.
The next example shows how to kick user foo's connections from
192.0.2.*:
doveadm who -1 foo
username service pid ip
foo imap 8135 fd95:4eed:38ba::25
foo imap 9112 192.0.2.53
foo imap 8216 192.0.2.111
doveadm kick foo 192.0.2.0/24
doveadm who f\*
username # service (pids) (ips)
foo 1 imap (8135) (fd95:4eed:38ba::25)
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing List
⟨dovecot@dovecot.org⟩. Information about reporting bugs is available at:
https://dovecot.org/bugreport.html
SEE ALSO
doveadm(1)
78ffb79 March 2025 DOVEADM-KICK(1)
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