DOVEADM-PW(1) Dovecot DOVEADM-PW(1)
NAME
doveadm-pw - Dovecot's password hash generator and validator
SYNOPSIS
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] pw -l
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] pw [-p password] [-r rounds] [-s scheme] [-u
user] [-V]
doveadm [GLOBAL OPTIONS] pw -t hash [-p password] [-u user]
DESCRIPTION
doveadm pw is used to generate password hashes for different password
scheme s and optionally verify the generated hash.
All generated password hashes have a {scheme} prefix, for example
{SHA512-CRYPT.HEX}. All passdbs have a default scheme for passwords
stored without the {scheme} prefix. The default scheme can be overridden
by storing the password with the scheme prefix.
If you want to use this feature to verify or generate passwords without
configuring Dovecot first, you can use doveadm -O pw to do so.
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
-l
List all supported password scheme s and exit successfully.
There are up to three optional password schemes: BLF-CRYPT (Blowfish
crypt), SHA256-CRYPT and SHA512-CRYPT. Their availability depends on
the system's currently used libc.
-p password
was given doveadm(1) will prompt interactively for one. (Beware
that using this option means the plain text password will be in your
shell history!)
-r rounds
The password scheme s BLF-CRYPT, SHA256-CRYPT and SHA512-CRYPT sup-
ports a variable number of encryption rounds. The following table
shows the minimum/maximum number of encryption rounds per scheme.
When the -r option was omitted the default number of encryption
rounds will be applied.
| Scheme | Minimum | Maximum | Default | | ------ | ------- |
------- | ------- | | BLF-CRYPT | 4 | 31 | 5 | | SHA256-CRYPT | 1000
| 999999999 | 5000 | | SHA512-CRYPT | 1000 | 999999999 | 5000 |
-s scheme
The password scheme which should be used to generate the hashed
password. By default the CRYPT scheme will be used (with the $2y$
bcrypt format). It is also possible to append an encoding suffix to
the scheme. Supported encoding suffixes are: .b64, .base64 and .hex.
See also password_schemes for more details about password schemes.
-t hash
option. When no password was specified, doveadm(1) will prompt in-
teractively for one.
-u user
name must also be given, because the user name is a part of the
generated hash. For more information about Digest-MD5 please read
also auth_digest_md5. For other schemes, this is not required.
-V
When this option is given, the hashed password will be internally
verified. The result of the verification will be shown after the
hashed password, enclosed in parenthesis.
EXAMPLE
An ARGON2ID hash (best security at time of this writing, though can be
heavy on a busy server):
doveadm pw -s ARGON2ID
``ldas;l;als;las;lkas
Enter new password: Retype new password: {ARGON2ID}$ar-
gon2id$v=19$m=65536,t=3,p=1$AOrrkaFmGxCFtX+NCSHFkg$N3rlzYFqyNkCwrO-
ingnDJ/qDQ09yGHgQa8PQfbu7rIE
Alternatively, a SHA512-CRYPT hash:
```sh
doveadm pw -s SHA512-CRYPT
Enter new password:
Retype new password:
{SHA512-CRYPT}$6$qAvxfQ2UbA1QTXSg$SB2aMEK76DBObt.KqTjF5.yDMceaD3dkG2UvrKQD0rZ9PKii/VAn.VS0nBsDqJX18kXieMi8AWJr0f7Ae9dAp/
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-PW(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 06:53:56 CET 2025.