[Dovecot] using 'socat' to relay Dovecot SASL's auth socket over TCP?

hi,

i've been running Exim & Dovecot together on the same box.

Exim's been sharing Dovecot/SASL auth info over a local unix socket. works great.

i'm now splitting Exim & Dovecot onto two different boxes.

iiuc, Dovecot ONLY provides a UNIX (local) socket; *not* a TCP socket for over-the-network access. SUre, I could mount the Dovecot socket's volume over NFS ... but just don't want to go there.

i've just discovered,

socat - Multipurpose relay
http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/

"Socat is a command line based utility that establishes two

bidirectional byte streams and transfers data between them. Because the streams can be constructed from a large set of different types of data sinks and sources (see address types), and because lots of address options may be applied to the streams, socat can be used for many different purposes. It might be one of the tools that one `has already needed'."

which, iiuc (?), can bidirectionally bridge the Dovecot unix-socket to a TCP socket that Exim can talk/listen to.

reading further, "address types" (http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/doc/socat.html#ADDRESS_TYPES) seem to include BOTH unix & tcp sockets ...

can anyone here comment further on this?

known to work? possible? no way? etc etc

thanks!