[Dovecot] Why is dovecot involved in my smtp process

[/dev/rob0]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 10:16:34AM -0500, Steve Campbell wrote:
> I've been trying to get smtp auth set up for days. All my sendmail
> and sasl2 stuff seems to be proper, but the user can't use the
> system on port 587, which is where I require authorization.
> 
> Now I see where messages are in my maillog of the type:
> 
> auth: pam_unix(dovecot:auth) : authentication failure ........
>
> Why is dovecot involved in my smtp processes and how do I fix
> this.

I would question that these failures are in fact related to what 
Sendmail is doing. Does Sendmail even support Dovecot SASL? AFAIK it 
does not, therefore there is no way that Dovecot could possibly 
interfere with SMTP AUTH in Sendmail.

> I've got some very mad users.

And you are jumping to conclusions. I suggest that you take this 
matter to a Sendmail forum. When you do, provide all relevant 
configuration as well as complete logging to show the problem. No 
useful help is possible with what you posted here.

> The 10-auth.conf file is pretty much
> stock except for allowing plain text logins.
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