[Dovecot] Can't connect to auth server

[Phill Edwards]

> Thanks for your reply, but I still don't understand how to fix my
> issue. I had a look at the wiki page and it says: "auth_socket_path =
> /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
>    UNIX socket path to master authentication server to find users."
>
> The file auth-master doesn't exist anywhere on my system, and the wiki
> doesn't tell me how to create it or what its contents should look
> like. So I still don't understand how I make dovecot provide the auth
> socket.

Actually, I think I may have solved my own problem here. In order for
auth-master to be created the following lines have to be uncommented
in dovecot.conf:

  #socket listen {
    #master {
      # Master socket provides access to userdb information. It's typically
      # used to give Dovecot's local delivery agent access to userdb so it
      # can find mailbox locations.
      #path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
      #mode = 0600
      # Default user/group is the one who started dovecot-auth (root)
      #user =
      #group =
    #}
    #client {
      # The client socket is generally safe to export to everyone. Typical use
      # is to export it to your SMTP server so it can do SMTP AUTH lookups
      # using it.
      #path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-client
      #mode = 0660
    #}
  #}

needs to look like this:

  socket listen {
    master {
      # Master socket provides access to userdb information. It's typically
      # used to give Dovecot's local delivery agent access to userdb so it
      # can find mailbox locations.
      path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
      mode = 0600
      # Default user/group is the one who started dovecot-auth (root)
      user =
      group =
    }
    #client {
      # The client socket is generally safe to export to everyone. Typical use
      # is to export it to your SMTP server so it can do SMTP AUTH lookups
      # using it.
      #path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-client
      #mode = 0660
    #}
  }

I deliberately hadn't uncommented them before because the top of
dovecot.conf says this:

   # '#' character and everything after it is treated as comments. Extra spaces
   # and tabs are ignored. If you want to use either of these
explicitly, put the
   # value inside quotes, eg.: key = "# char and trailing whitespace  "

   # Default values are shown for each setting, it's not required to uncomment
   # any of the lines.

Clearly that last part is incorrect because in this case it WAS
necessary to uncomment the lines in the socket listen stanza in order
for it to work.

I hope this helps someone else.

Regards,
Phill