PREFIX/etc/cyrusdb.db now needs to be created before applications that depend on SASL are used. su cyrus PREFIX/sbin/saslpasswd -c userid You will also need to start the pwcheck daemon: PREFIX/etc/rc.d/pwcheck.sh start Read the documentation in PREFIX/share/doc/SASL How to enable SMTP AUTH with system Sendmail 8.11 - Sendmail.README How to use LDAP or MySQL for passwords - see html/sysadmin.html