What is the purpose of the < (less than symbol) before path in dovecot settings

Question

In the default dovecot ssl config file the certificate file paths are specified like:

ssl_cert = </etc/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem

What is the purpose of that < symbol preceding the path?

UPDATE: A comment below contained a dead link to docs detailing this syntax. Here is the current working link which may be helpful to future readers: https://doc.dovecot.org/configuration_manual/config_file/#reading-value-from-file

[Link to documentation](https://wiki.dovecot.org/ConfigFile#Reading_value_from_file) — VL-80, Jun 05 '18 at 14:42
thanks - i looked for an explanation in the docs but failed to find it. appreciate the link. it's also good to know that the settings are read when the service is loaded — Eaten by a Grue, Jun 05 '18 at 15:02

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 05 '18 at 19:20

11

It’s to make it read the contents of the file rather than using the literal string “/etc/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem” as the certificate.

edited Jun 05 '18 at 19:20

chicks

answered Jun 05 '18 at 10:43

Mike Scott

4

I see - so it's a redirection operator. I was speculating about that but just seems odd to use it this way in a config file. – Eaten by a Grue Jun 05 '18 at 10:52

1 Answers1