I try to setup postfix with smtp authentication. I want to use /etc/shadow as my realm Unfortunately I get a "generic error" when i try to authenticate # nc localhost 25 220 mail.foo ESMTP Postfix AUTH PLAIN _base_64_encoded_user_name_and_password_ 535 5.7.8 Error: authentication failed: generic failure In the mail.warn logfile i get the following entry Oct 8 10:43:40 mail postfix/smtpd[1060]: warning: SASL authentication failure: cannot connect to saslauthd server: No such file or directory Oct 8 10:43:40 mail postfix/smtpd[1060]: warning: SASL authentication failure: Password verification failed Oct 8 10:43:40 mail postfix/smtpd[1060]: warning: _ip_: SASL PLAIN authentication failed: generic failure However the sasl setup seems to be fine $ testsaslauthd -u _user_ -p _pass_ 0: OK "Success." i added smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes to the main.cf This is my smtpd.conf $ cat /etc/postfix/sasl/smtpd.conf pwcheck_method: saslauthd mech_list: PLAIN LOGIN saslauthd_path: /var/run/saslauthd/mux autotransition:true I tried this conf with the last two commands and without. I'm running debian stable. How can postfix find and connect to the saslauthd server? Edit: I'm not sure whether postfix runs in a chroot The master.cf looks like this: http://pastebin.com/Fz38TcUP saslauth is located in the sbin $ which saslauthd /usr/sbin/saslauthd The EHLO has this response EHLO _server_name_ 250-_server_name_ 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 10240000 250-VRFY 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS 250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES 250-8BITMIME 250 DSN