dovecot - Mar 2011 - Can't disable chroot to 'empty' dir, but need to... how to do it?

Hello all...

I've installed dovecot on my ISP's shell server, and am using SSH
tunnelling
so that I can retrieve my mbox-format mail from procmail-processed mailboxes
on that server (normally I just ssh there and read them locally with pine,
but now that I have a phone with an IMAP client, I wanted to be able to read
it more easily there).

The problem I'm having is, although it's working, whenever dovecot
starts up,
or I try to log in, it attempts to chroot to
/home/mydir/dovecot/var/run/dovecot/empty
(where /home/mydir/dovecot is the path to my dovecot installation).

I've turned off all chroot'ing in all the config files, but it still
seems to
want to chroot to that one directory.  The message I see in the log is:

Mar 19 02:09:43 master: Info: Dovecot v2.0.11 starting up (core dumps disabled)
Mar 19 02:09:44 anvil: Fatal: chroot(/home/mydir/dovecot/var/run/dovecot/empty)
failed: Operation not permitted
Mar 19 02:09:44 master: Error: service(anvil): command startup failed,
throttling

This doesn't cause a problem accessing my mail, but it DOES seem to wait 60
seconds
between attempts at chroot'ing, so logins to the server take that long
(until the
chroot fails).

Is there any way I can disable this?  Again, I've followed the instructions
and
set 'chroot=' (empty) for all services, but that hasn't helped.

- Tim

On Sat, 2011-03-19 at 02:31 -0700, Tim Bessie wrote:
> Hello all...
> 
> I've installed dovecot on my ISP's shell server, and am using SSH
tunnelling
> so that I can retrieve my mbox-format mail from procmail-processed
mailboxes
> on that server (normally I just ssh there and read them locally with pine,
> but now that I have a phone with an IMAP client, I wanted to be able to
read
> it more easily there).
This sounds like you'd be doing imap-over-ssh by executing something
like "ssh host libexec/dovecot/imap".
> The problem I'm having is, although it's working, whenever dovecot
starts up,
> or I try to log in, it attempts to chroot to
/home/mydir/dovecot/var/run/dovecot/empty
> (where /home/mydir/dovecot is the path to my dovecot installation).
But imap wouldn't do any chrooting
> Mar 19 02:09:43 master: Info: Dovecot v2.0.11 starting up (core dumps
disabled)
or start up Dovecot master. So I guess you're not doing imap-over-ssh.
(Or if you are, you don't need to be starting dovecot.)
> Mar 19 02:09:44 anvil: Fatal:
chroot(/home/mydir/dovecot/var/run/dovecot/empty) failed: Operation not
permitted
service anvil {
  chroot = 
}