[Dovecot] auth-master permission error

[greno at verizon.net]

On F7, I get to where I have Postfix and Dovecot installed and configured, postfix check runs fine, but when I try to start Dovecot I'm getting a permission error.  Here is the log entry:

Dec 29 21:54:06 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: Dovecot v1.0.7 starting up
Dec 29 21:54:06 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: Generating Diffie-Hellman parameters for the first time. This may take a while..
Dec 29 21:54:06 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: auth(default): bind(/var/run/dovecot/auth-master) failed: Permission denied
Dec 29 21:54:06 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: auth(default): net_listen_unix(/var/run/dovecot/auth-master) failed: Permission denied

Here are the permissions on the filesystem:

# ls -ld /var/run/dovecot
drwxr-xr-x 3 root dovecot 4096 2007-12-29 22:07 /var/run/dovecot

And in the conf file there is this in the lda protocol:

  socket listen {
    master {
        path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
        mode = 0600
        user = vmail
    }

    client {
        path = /var/spool/postfix/private/auth
        mode = 0660
        user = postfix
        group = postfix
    }
  }

What should I change to straighten out these permissions?

I forgot to mention that when I try to start Dovecot that I get this message:

dovecot dead but subsys locked

I'm thinking it is just a side effect of the permissions issue.  

Anyway I tried setting perms to 777 on /var/run/dovecot but this didn't help.  So still needing some hints.

A clue.  I can start Dovecot as 'root':
# dovecot
# ps -ef

root     14164     1  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 dovecot
root     14165 14164  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 dovecot-auth
root     14166 14164  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 dovecot-auth -w
dovecot  14168 14164  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 pop3-login
dovecot  14169 14164  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 pop3-login
dovecot  14170 14164  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 pop3-login
dovecot  14171 14164  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 imap-login
dovecot  14172 14164  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 imap-login
dovecot  14173 14164  0 00:07 ?        00:00:00 imap-login

maillog:
Dec 30 00:07:40 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: Dovecot v1.0.7 starting up
Dec 30 00:07:41 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: auth-worker(default): mysql: Connected to 127.0.0.1 (mailserver)

But if I try to start it using init.d:
# service dovecot start
dovecot dead but subsys locked

maillog:
Dec 30 00:12:49 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: Auth process died too early - shutting down
Dec 30 00:12:49 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: auth(default): bind(/var/run/dovecot/auth-master) failed: Permission denied
Dec 30 00:12:49 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: auth(default): net_listen_unix(/var/run/dovecot/auth-master) failed: Permission denied
Dec 30 00:12:49 grp-01-50-90 dovecot: child 14301 (auth) returned error 89


????

Gerry