Hello, as dovecot can have many different authentication backends and exposes itself as authentication source trough dovecot-auth client socket (which example configuration can be found bellow). This module enables you to authenticate users against it using basic authentication. ################################################################################ socket listen { #master { # Master socket provides access to userdb information. It's typically # used to give Dovecot's local delivery agent access to userdb so it # can find mailbox locations. #path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master #mode = 0600 # Default user/group is the one who started dovecot-auth (root) #user = #group = #} client { # The client socket is generally safe to export to everyone. Typical # use # is to export it to your SMTP server so it can do SMTP AUTH lookups # using it. path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-client mode = 0666 } } ################################################################################ Example configuration of apache2 server can be found in "example.conf" file in same directory. Currently there is possibility to chain it with other authentication mechanisms but that will / should be discussed anyway. ################################################################################ <Directory "/srv/www/htdocs"> AuthType Basic AuthName "My dovecot authenticated place" AuthBasicProvider dovecot AuthDovecotAuthSocket /var/run/dovecot/auth-client AuthDovecotTimeout 5 AuthDovecotAuthoritative On Require valid-user Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride AuthConfig Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ################################################################################