[opencms-dev] Unable to read the OpenCms XML configuration, tomcat5.pid Permission denied, scratchDir ... unusable

[ls]

Hi Group,

after three years of running opencms stable (with tomcat on linux 2.6)
i got an old error back ...

org.opencms.main.CmsInitException: Critical error during OpenCms initialization: Unable to read the OpenCms XML configuration.
	org.opencms.main.OpenCmsCore.getInstance(OpenCmsCore.java:269)
	org.opencms.main.OpenCmsServlet.doGet(OpenCmsServlet.java:127)
	javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:743)
	javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856)

... together with some (classic) log-file error-messages:

(from catalina.out)
SEVERE: The scratchDir you specified: 
/home/gid/gid-online.com/tomcat/gid-online.com/work/Catalina/localhost/opencms 
is unusable.

... and (from tomcat start.log)
/usr/share/tomcat5/bin/catalina.sh: line 284: /var/run/tomcat5.pid: 
Permission denied


As far as i understand these errors has something to do withe the 
user-rights where tomcat
runs on, but i don't know enough, (to solve this by edding the related 
config-files), to fix it.

Is there someone out there who can guide/help me ?

regards,
Andrew