[root@hostname112767 ~]# service dovecot start
Starting Dovecot Imap: Error: Can't write to log directory /var/log: Permission denied
Fatal: Invalid configuration in /etc/dovecot.conf
                                                           [FAILED]

If you don't want to use syslog, or if you just can't find the Dovecot's error logs, you can make Dovecot log elsewhere as well:

log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log
# If you want everything in one file, just don't specify info_log_path
info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot-info.log

The warning and error messages will go to file specified by log_path, 
while everything else goes to info_log_path. If you do this, make sure 
you're really looking at the log_path file for error messages, since the "Starting up" 
message is written to info_log_path file.