Dovecot 2.3 - using doveadm as non-root?

[Rob Hoelz]

Hi dovecot developers and users,

I recently upgraded my server running Arch Linux to dovecot 2.3.0, and I
noticed some of my cron jobs started issuing me error messages.  These
cron jobs run as a non-root user associated with my mail account, and
they use doveadm to tidy things up (ex. purging the trash, moving
old mail in certain folders into the trash).  The error message is:

> Error: net_connect_unix(/var/run/dovecot/stats-writer) failed:
> Permission denied

I assume this is doveadm trying to participate in the new 2.3 stats
process, and after reading the code a bit, I can't see way to tell
doveadm to not connect to the stats writer.  The socket is owned by
root with 600 permissions.

What would be the right way to remedy this?  AFAICT, I could potentially
run doveadm as root (which I would prefer to avoid), or I could change
the permissions on the stats writer socket, but I would hate to
introduce any sort of security vulnerability by doing so.  I currently
have a scrappy Perl script that just runs doveadm and filters out the
error message (it doesn't seem to affect the behavior of doveadm other
than the message), but that feels dirty and I would prefer a cleaner
solution.  Any advice?

Thanks,
Rob