[Dovecot] Problem with running two dovecot instances on the same server

[Alexandr Sabitov]

On 27/07/12 10:00, Daniel Parthey wrote:
> Alexandr Sabitov wrote:
>> The problem is when I run two instances of dovecot 2.1.8 which are
>> one for proxy-director and another one is a regular one on the same
>> server then I have big amount of strange entries in the
>> /var/log/mail.err:
>>
>> Jul 26 11:51:20 dovecot-test-1 dovecot: director: Error: Empty server list
>> Jul 26 11:51:20 dovecot-test-1 dovecot: director: Fatal: Invalid value for director_mail_servers setting
>> Jul 26 11:51:20 dovecot-test-1 dovecot: master: Error: service(director): command startup failed, throttling for 60 secs
>> Jul 26 11:52:20 dovecot-test-1 dovecot: director: Error: Empty server list
>> Jul 26 11:52:20 dovecot-test-1 dovecot: director: Fatal: Invalid value for director_mail_servers setting
>> Jul 26 11:52:20 dovecot-test-1 dovecot: master: Error: service(director): command startup failed, throttling for 60 secs
> Does behaviour change when you are using more than a single
> IP address on director_mail_servers variable?
>
> Can you elaborate a bit more how the IP addresses are used
> and on which hosts which IP is UP and running on which interface?
>
>> That's for sure set->director_mail_servers variable in main_preinit of ./src/director/main.c
>> But after dumping it it turns out that ppid of the process which
>> failed to use main_preinit function is a "regular" dovecot not the
>> proxy one.
>> When main_preinit is used by dovecot-proxy then
>> set->director_mail_servers = ip address of a mail server and it is
>> all good
>> but if  main_preinit is used by dovecot then
>> set->director_mail_servers = empty and I get fatal errors in logs.
>>
>> So here is a question: How come that "non-proxy" dovecot requests
>> director_mail_servers variable and writes fatal error in the logs if
>> it doesn't find it ?
> Maybe your director is not using the dovecot-proxy.conf?
> Maybe a conflict between the sockets of the two instances?
>
> Please show the output of the following commands:
>
> # ps -ef|grep bin/dovecot|grep -v grep
> # doveadm instance list
>
> Regards
> Daniel
Hi Daniel and All,

Sure, here is an output of the commands:

root at dovecot-test-1:/home/asabitov# ps -ef|grep bin/dovecot |grep -v grep
root      8214     1  0 Jul26 ?        00:00:04 
/usr/local/dovecot/sbin/dovecot -c 
/usr/local/dovecot/etc/dovecot/dovecot-proxy.conf
root      8224     1  0 Jul26 ?        00:00:07 
/usr/local/dovecot/sbin/dovecot

root at dovecot-test-1:/home/asabitov# /usr/local/dovecot/bin/doveadm 
instance list
path name          last used           running
/var/run/dovecot dovecot       2012-07-26 23:29:41 yes
/var/run/dovecot-proxy    dovecot-proxy 2012-07-26 23:20:00 yes


And the situation changes for the better when I use two separate 
binaries installed in different folders, so for example this is another 
server where I do NOT have
those fatal errors in the logs:

root at dovecot-test-2:/home/asabitov# ps -ef|grep bin/dovecot |grep -v grep
root     31859     1  0 Jul25 ?        00:00:10 
/usr/local/dovecot/sbin/dovecot
root     31871     1  0 Jul25 ?        00:00:03 
/usr/local/dovecot-proxy/sbin/dovecot

Thank you for your reply anyway.

-- 

Regards,
Alexandr Sabitov
Systems Administrator
Netregistry