snort failing to start

[autoxv6]

has anyone experienced problems starting snort with the default script? the script states success but there is no snort process.

so i investigate and look at the defaults in /etc/conf.d/snort, specifically the flags.

so i try and start snort manually with those flags and it silently fails with those flags. i try them all systematically and single the proble down to the -u user flag. this should allow snort to run as a different user (nobody). but it fails.

so i tried starting it as another user (my user account), and again it fails silently.

is there something im missing? snort would start with any user on my old debian box. i have a custom kernel (no major security patches just basic XFS and preempt) but i have not adjusted any of the default users.

can other gentoo users start snort with -u flag?