The ipop2d, ipop3d, and imapd daemons should be invoked by your /etc/inetd.conf file with lines such as: pop2 stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/libexec/ipop2d ipop2d pop3 stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/libexec/ipop3d ipop3d imap4 stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/libexec/imapd imapd If PAM authentication support has been compiled in you will need to add something like the following lines to /etc/pam.conf (PAM authentication is default): imap auth required pam_unix.so imap account required pam_unix.so try_first_pass imap session required pam_deny.so pop3 auth required pam_unix.so pop3 account required pam_unix.so try_first_pass pop3 session required pam_deny.so The pam_unix module does not have session support, so we do not use it for session management. Be sure to read up on pam.conf(5).