[Dovecot] 2.0.alpha3 dovecot/auth works multiplying

[Alan Commike]

I setup a test machine with 2.0.alpha3 - Linux, Centos 5.4. I'm using
Postfix as my MTA with dovecot to do SASL authorization from
/etc/{passwd,shadow}. I'm getting 'dovecot/auth -w' processes hanging
around, over a few days I've reached into the 100s. As a test I set
auth_worker_max_count = 2, didn't make a difference.

Attaching with strace, looks like they're in their standard poll loop
waiting for input. 

Any ideas? I haven't instrumented any of the code yet to see what's going
on. I expect somehow you're losing track that the auth worker is out there? 

I have an old 1.x installation working with a similar setup.

Here's the config:

[root at pf ~]# dovecot -n
# 2.0.alpha3: /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# OS: Linux 2.6.18-164.el5 i686 CentOS release 5.4 (Final)
auth_debug = yes
auth_debug_passwords = yes
auth_verbose = yes
auth_worker_max_count = 2
base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/
debug_log_path = /var/log/dovecot
info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot
listen = *
log_path = /var/log/dovecot
mail_debug = yes
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
passdb {
  deny = no
  driver = shadow
}
postmaster_address = postmaster at projectfoodie.com
protocols = imap imaps
service imap-login {
  inet_listener {
    port = 993
    ssl = yes
  }
}
service auth {
  unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth {
    group = postfix
    mode = 511
    user = postfix
  }
}
ssl = required
ssl_cert = </etc/ssl/certs/dovecot.pem
ssl_key = </etc/ssl/private/dovecot.pem
userdb {
  args = blocking=yes
  driver = passwd
}
userdb {
  args = /etc/passwd
  driver = passwd-file
}
verbose_proctitle = yes
verbose_ssl = yes


--
Alan Commike
Founder, QEDLabs
commike at qedlabs.com
http://www.qedlabs.com
408.472.3202