I am running Dovecot with several virtual users in passwd-file: http://wiki2.dovecot.org/AuthDatabase/PasswdFile . The file is /etc/dovecot/userdb . How can I enable the users to change their password?
This is Debian GNU/Linux (Wheezy).
Debian – How to enable Dovecot virtual users to change their password using passwd-file
debiandovecotpasswduser-management
Best Answer
Actually, dovecot doesn't care about user-management. Its primary task were only do authentication and authorization by reading (not modifying) passwd-file, handling POP3 and IMAP connections and sometimes deliver email to mailbox. Also as Andre Daniel said, IMAP/POP3 wasn't protocol for user-management. It is a protocol to get email and synchronization. You need another tool to do user-management.
The common approach was storing the userdb in database backend such as MySQL or LDAP. In this way, webapp language such as PHP can easily modify it because the have native driver to it. This approach was adopted by several webmail such as this Roundcube plugin.
If you use passwd-file, then you may have a script or webapp that used by user and should be reading the passwd-file and modify it when password change request.