OK, I have read through the forums and I still can't figure this out.
I have installed courier-imap. It seems to be that it does not recognize my passwords. I am using shaodw passwords. I cant figure out how to login with this.
Can someone please tell me how to get courier-imap to work?

Can you post your courier config files:
imapd
authdemonrc

Also take a look at your maillog and /var/log/messages and see if there are any entries relating to your issue in there.

ok imapd config:

##NAME: ADDRESS:0
#
# Address to listen on, can be set to a single IP address.
#
# ADDRESS=127.0.0.1

ADDRESS=0
##NAME: PORT:1

PORT=143

##NAME: AUTHSERVICE:0
MAXDAEMONS=40
MAXPERIP=4
PIDFILE=/var/run/imapd.pid
TCPDOPTS="-nodnslookup -noidentlookup"
AUTHMODULES="authdaemon"
AUTHMODULES_ORIG="authdaemon"
DEBUG_LOGIN=0

IMAP_CAPABILITY="IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS CHILDREN NAMESPACE THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES SORT QUOTA IDLE"

IMAP_CAPABILITY_ORIG="IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS CHILDREN NAMESPACE THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES SORT QUOTA AUTH=CRAM-MD5 AUTH=CRAM-SHA1 IDLE"

IMAP_IDLE_TIMEOUT=60
IMAP_CAPABILITY_TLS="$IMAP_CAPABILITY AUTH=PLAIN"

IMAP_CAPABILITY_TLS_ORIG="$IMAP_CAPABILITY_ORIG AUTH=PLAIN"
IMAP_DISABLETHREADSORT=0
IMAP_CHECK_ALL_FOLDERS=0
IMAP_OBSOLETE_CLIENT=0
IMAP_ULIMITD=65536
IMAP_USELOCKS=0
IMAP_ENHANCEDIDLE=0
IMAP_TRASHFOLDERNAME=Trash
IMAP_EMPTYTRASH=Trash:7
IMAP_MOVE_EXPUNGE_TO_TRASH=0
SENDMAIL=/usr/sbin/sendmail
HEADERFROM=X-IMAP-Sender
IMAPDSTART=NO
#Hardwire a value for ${MAILDIR}
MAILDIR=.maildir
#Put any program for ${PRERUN} here
PRERUN=

OK, my authdaemonrc file is:

authmodulelist="authcustom authcram authuserdb authldap authpgsql authmysql authpam"
authmodulelistorig="authcustom authcram authuserdb authldap authpgsql authmysql authpam"

daemons=5
version=""
authdaemonvar=/var/lib/courier-imap/authdaemon

MY log file looks like this:

Sep 3 15:40:13 MyBox imapd: Connection, ip=[192.168.1.1]
Sep 3 15:40:19 MyBox imapd: LOGIN, user=techie, ip=[192.168.1.1], protocol=IMAP
Sep 3 15:40:19 MyBox imapd: chdir .maildir: No such file or directory.

It isn't that the password is failing it is that you haven't set up the directories for storing your mail.

If you are using "~/.maildir" make sure it exists and that the permissions are correct.

ok i set my MAILDIR=.maildir to
MAILDIR=/var/spool/mail

Now all it says is "connecting". Its been saying that for about 30mins now.

Any idea?

Thanks

You will need to give it a location relative to your home dir - ie the location that your mta delivers mail to.