[Dovecot] dovecot: pipe() failed: Too many open files

[JW]

On Friday 18 December 2009 16:00:48 Timo Sirainen wrote:
> On Dec 18, 2009, at 4:47 PM, JW wrote:
> > I've researched this problem a number of times, usually I see suggestions
> > to increase ulimit.
> >
> > I've done this a number of times, all the way up to:
> >
> > ulimit -n 8192
> >
> > I've put that in the init script right above the daemon start line.
>
> What exactly is the "daemon start line"

I'm sorry, I forgot to specify that I was using Debian Linux:


case "$1" in
  start)
    if grep protocols /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf | sed 's/#.*$//' | tr -d '"' | 
\
    egrep -q '[^#]*(\bpop3s?\b|\bimaps?\b)';
    then
      if [ -x /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login -a -x /usr/lib/dovecot/imap ] \
        || [ -x /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login -a -x /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3 ];
      then
        echo -n "Starting $DESC: $NAME"
        ulimit -n 8192
        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --oknodo --exec $DAEMON
        echo "."
      fi
    fi
    ;;
  stop)
    echo -n "Stopping $DESC: $NAME "
    start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --exec $DAEMON
    echo "."
    ;;


> ? Many Linux distros override ulimit 
> in their internal scripts. If you're using Linux, you could check if
> dovecot process really has 8192 limit:
>
> cat /proc/`pidof dovecot`/limits | grep 'Max open'


I've seen this suggestion on the web a few times, but there's no such 
directory, /proc/`pidof dovecot`/limits or /proc/*/limits for that matter

	pidof dovecot

shows the pid for:

	/usr/sbin/dovecot

I've tried "grep -i max" and grep -i open in the /proc/$pid/* directory for 
every pid of every dovecot process on the system, none of the files in there 
contain either word.

mail:/var/log# ps auxw | grep dove
root     23299  0.0  0.0   1948   648 ?        Ss   00:41   
0:07 /usr/sbin/dovecot
root     23300  0.0  0.2   8752  2700 ?        S    00:41   0:05 dovecot-auth

mail:/var/log# ls /proc/23299
attr  cmdline  cwd      exe  maps  mounts      oom_adj    root   stat   status  
wchan
auxv  cpuset   environ  fd   mem   mountstats  oom_score  smaps  statm  task


Is there a different place I should put the ulimit?

	JW

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