dovecot isn't reading dovecot-sql.conf.ext correctly

Question

I added the following connection string to dovecot-sql.conf.ext:

connect = host=localhost dbname=<dbname> user=<dbuser> password="<password>"

The following error appears in /var/log/dovecot.log:

Apr 02 20:53:27 auth: Fatal: mysql: Missing value in connect string: XXX

Where XXX is the second word in <password>.

What is the correct way to enter a space-containing MySQL password in dovecot's configuration? (Note that the value of the password itself is fixed since it's in use by other systems.)

Answer 1

Update: It appears that dovecot implements an extremely primitive string-splitting function that has no support for escape sequences or quotes.

The only workaround is creating an extra mysql user just for dovecot with the spaces replaced with a different delimiter.