[Dovecot] Cannot create auth-master file

[Greg Frith]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get postfix and dovecot working nicely together to process and store mail for both local (system) on one domain and virtual users and a few different domains.

I've got postfix up and running quite nicely, but am having a few problems with Dovecot.  Every time postfix tried to delivery a message to a virtual user using dovecot I get an error like the following in /var/log/mail.log:

Mar  8 21:53:58 rhy postfix/pipe[6616]: 89C94846E: to=<gregf at gregsfamily.com>, orig_to=<greg at gregsfamily.com>, relay=dovecot, delay=8795, 
delays=8794/0.01/0/0.61, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure)

At the same instant, in my dovecot log I'll get this error:

deliver(gregf at gregsfamily.com): 2010-03-08 21:53:58 Error: Can't connect to auth server at /var/run/dovecot/auth-master: Connection refused

So, I'm guessing that this is a permissions issue (somewhere) and that the dovecot process is not able to create the file /var/run/dovecot/auth-master.  The permissions on this folder are as follows:

gregf at rhy:/etc/dovecot$ ls -al /var/run/dovecot/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  root    100 2010-03-08 21:44 .
drwxr-xr-x 15 root  root    660 2010-03-08 22:00 ..
srw-------  1 vmail root      0 2010-03-08 21:43 auth-master
srwxrwxrwx  1 root  root      0 2010-03-08 21:43 dict-server
drwxr-x---  2 root  dovecot  60 2010-03-08 21:44 login

I've searched around for hours, found several threads describing similar issues, but no solutions that have worked for me.  If anyone is able to give me any pointers or suggestions I would be most grateful.  

My dovecot configuration is:

gregf at rhy:/etc/dovecot$ sudo dovecot -n
# 1.1.11: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# OS: Linux 2.6.28-18-generic x86_64 Ubuntu 9.04 ext3
log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S 
protocols: imaps pop3s imap pop3
login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login
login_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login
login_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login
mail_privileged_group: mail
mail_location: maildir:/home/vmail/%d/%u
mail_debug: yes
mail_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap
mail_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap
mail_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3
mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap
mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap
mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/pop3
auth default:
  mechanisms: plain login
  user: vmail
  debug: yes
  debug_passwords: yes
  passdb:
    driver: sql
    args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf
  userdb:
    driver: static
    args: uid=5000 gid=5000 home=/home/vmail/%d/%n allow_all_users=yes
  socket:
    type: listen
    client:
      path: /var/spool/postfix/private/auth
      mode: 432
      user: postfix
      group: postfix
    master:
      path: /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
      mode: 384
      user: vmail


:wq
G