permissions problem on startup

[John Jolet]

>> yeah, I thought of that.  If I give postfix a shell, su - postfix  
>> I can view the file just fine.  It appeared to me when I looked at  
>> that module that it was mostly concerned with ldap servers.  was I  
>> incorrect?  I don't have any, and that portion of the config file  
>> is commented out.  just grasping at straws at this point.
>
> I would not advise you try to work out how the configuration  
> compiler works, it's pretty complex. :-)
>
> If you do su - postfix then cd / then cd down each dir to the  
> file's location, does that all work at every step?
yes, it does.  That gave me an idea, however.  su - postfix from  
root, THEN run check_mailscanner, and it works.  so I can start it as  
postfix if i'm postfix.  I guess I can handle that.....but it's still  
odd.