[Dovecot] dovecot rejecting auth after working a few times

[Matthew Thorley]

Alright then. I took Charles advice, installed version 1.0.10, and
created a new config from scratch.

Dovecot is still hanging up randomly. When I starts to hang (stop
allowing users to login) I get errors like this in syslog

Feb 14 13:44:59 mail dovecot: pop3-login: Can't connect to auth server
at default: Resource temporarily unavailable
Feb 14 13:45:00 mail dovecot: imap-login: Can't connect to auth server
at default: Resource temporarily unavailable

When the problem occurs I also get a few extra dovecot-auth processes
that won't die. When I do killall -9 dovecot-auth, dovecot begins
responding again and allowing users to access their mail.

I saw some similar problems with older versions in the list archives
but no solutions. One was for an Ubuntu LTS system, which is what my
server is. I am guessing then, that the problem may have to do with
pam, or how dovecot is connecting to it. I saw some one mentioning a
possible race condition, but no solution.

Does any one have any hints or suggestions.

Thanks. Relevant config info below
--
matthew

root at molly-sl:~# /opt/local/sbin/dovecot -n
# 1.0.10: /opt/local/etc/dovecot.conf
protocols: pop3s imaps
ssl_cert_file: /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
ssl_key_file: /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
login_dir: /opt/local/var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable(default): /opt/local/libexec/dovecot/imap-login
login_executable(imap): /opt/local/libexec/dovecot/imap-login
login_executable(pop3): /opt/local/libexec/dovecot/pop3-login
mail_location: maildir:/var/mail/%u
mail_executable(default): /opt/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
mail_executable(imap): /opt/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
mail_executable(pop3): /opt/local/libexec/dovecot/pop3
mail_plugin_dir(default): /opt/local/lib/dovecot/imap
mail_plugin_dir(imap): /opt/local/lib/dovecot/imap
mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /opt/local/lib/dovecot/pop3
pop3_uidl_format(default):
pop3_uidl_format(imap):
pop3_uidl_format(pop3): %v-%u
auth default:
  passdb:
    driver: pam
  userdb:
    driver: passwd

root at molly-sl:~# /opt/local/sbin/dovecot --version
1.0.10