After several trouble free months and without any obvious reason our server just stopped working. I cannot even re-start it:

[root@dsmail /]# service dovecot start

Starting Dovecot Imap: Can't open log file /var/log/dovecot.log: Permission denied

If I create those manually (touch /var/log/dovecot.log, .../dovecot_info.log, .. dovecot_debug.log) service starts, but reports an error in dovecot.log: "Dec 16 14:55:30 master: Error: symlink(/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf, /var/run/dovecot/dovecot.conf) failed: Permission denied" and users still cannot login.

Where do I start troubleshooting?

Bellow is my dovecot -n:

# 2.0.4: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf

# OS: Linux 2.6.18-128.el5 x86_64 CentOS release 5.5 (Final) auth_master_user_separator = * debug_log_path = /var/log/dovecot_debug.log info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot_info.log log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log mail_location = maildir:~/%Ln passdb {

driver = pam

}

passdb {

args = /etc/dovecot/master-users

driver = passwd-file

master = yes

}

plugin {

acl = vfile:/etc/dovecot/acls:cache_secs=300

quota = maildir:User quota

quota_rule = *:storage=1G

}

protocols = imap

ssl_cert =

ssl_key =

userdb {

args = uid=vmail gid=vmail home=/data/vmail allow_all_users=yes

driver = static

}

protocol imap {

mail_plugins = acl quota imap_quota

}