[Dovecot] Fatal: USER environment missing

[Evert Mouw]

I have some trouble installing dovecot, and maybe someone can help me.

I have compiled dovecot on a Slackware Linux 9.0 running on a i586, and the
imap program works OK (I tested it using the method described in the error
reporting document). The make install procedure didn't create a correct
/etc/rc.d/rc.dovecot file. I have created a dovecot user and group manually.

Running just "dovecot" from the command line does not give any errors, but
dovecot terminates and doesn't whow up with ps x. So I tried to start it
from inetd, but starting dovecot from inetd results in something like "port
143 already in use", so I decided to start /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
directly from inetd, which results in Fatal: USER environment missing, even
when using root for everyting (and the environment variable USER really
exists).

I fiddled with various options in the dovecot.conf file without any results.

Now I'm stuck; the INSTALL document actually is a BUILD document and I can't
find anything about post installation :-(

Someone any ideas?

Regards
Evert Mouw