Auth process died too early - shutting down, child 3116 (auth) returned error 127

I am trying to set up dovecot 0.99 running in RHEL 4 and I get the following error after starting dovecot:
"Auth process died too early - shutting down,
child 3116 (auth) returned error 127
localhost imap-login: fd_send(-1) failed: Broken pipe
localhost pop3-login: fd_send(-1) failed: Broken pipe"

The dovecot configuration file is as follows:

protocols = pop3 pop3s imap imaps
default_mail_env = mbox:/var/mail/%d/%n/:INDEX=/var/indexes/%d/%n
client_workarounds = oe6-fetch-no-newmail outlook-idle outlook-pop3-no
#pop3_uid1_format = %08Xu%08Xv
#imap_client_workarounds = delay-newmail outlook-idle netscape-eoh
#pop3_client_workarounds = outlook-no-nuls oe-ns-oeh
login_dir = /var/run/dovecot-login
login = imap
login_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login
login_user = dovecot
login_process_size = 32
login = pop3
login_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3-login
max_mail_processes = 1024
imap_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap
imap_process_size = 256
pop3_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3
pop3_process_size = 256
auth = default
auth_mechanisms = plain
auth_userdb = passwd
#auth_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-auth
#auth_process_size = 256
#auth_user = root

Any possible solution

 

Are there any errors in your logs?

 

Error Log

Falko,
Here is what the var/log/maillog mail states:
Dec 3 09:50:48 localhost dovecot: Dovecot starting up
Dec 3 09:50:49 localhost dovecot: Auth process died too early - shutting down
Dec 3 09:50:49 localhost dovecot: child 12405 (auth) returned error 127
Dec 3 09:50:49 localhost pop3-login: fd_send(-1) failed: Broken pipe
Dec 3 09:50:49 localhost pop3-login: fd_send(-1) failed: Broken pipe
Dec 3 09:51:12 localhost dovecot: Dovecot starting up
Dec 3 09:51:13 localhost dovecot: Auth process died too early - shutting down
Dec 3 09:51:13 localhost dovecot: child 12431 (auth) returned error 127
Dec 3 09:51:13 localhost pop3-login: fd_send(-1) failed: Broken pipe

 

Can you run

Code:

/usr/lib/dovecot/dovecot-auth

and see if you get any errors (see http://markmail.org/message/7q7jrik...ipe+page:1+mid:7q7jrik4lcwqmwez+state:results )?