All we need for the moment is to start saslauthd.

[root@example.com]# /etc/init.d/saslauthd start

To check whether and how saslauthd was started we do ps wax | grep saslauthd. This is what you should get:

[root@example.com]# ps wax | grep saslauthd
  869 ?      S    0:08 /usr/sbin/saslauthd -m /var/run/saslauthd/mux  -a shadow 

	The option -m /var/run/saslauthd/mux tells saslauthd where to create it's socket to listen for connections. Note In case you don't have that directory, you need to create it as root and make sure it has read/write permissions 755.
	The option -a shadow tells saslauthd which mechanism it should use to authenticate users.

	Important
	There are so many ways to build and configure SASL and each distribution does it differently. If you use saslauthd check either your init-scripts how they bring up saslauthd and verify that their settings e.g. paths etc. make sense or use the example above.