rh7.3 cyrus/sendmail - help

[jon Doh]

hi,

i followed my setup instructions from
http://www.entrophy-free.net/mail-server.html and i read through
documentation from cyrus and sendmail, but i have a problem. cyrus doesn't
seem to be responding. it is running, but there is no response. i get:

# telnet localhost imap
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.

but that is it. no message like:
* OK chaos.my-domain.tld Cyrus IMAP4 v2.0.16 server ready

and this command:
# /usr/local/bin/imtest -m login -a cyrus localhost

only results in:
C: C01 CAPABILITY

not
S: * OK chaos.my-domain.tld Cyrus IMAP4 v2.0.16 server ready

help is needed and greatly appreciated. thank you.