Hi,
I'm running Dovecot 1.0.7 (with various patches) on CentOS 5.2.
The server has suffered a couple of power loss events. Dovecot is run as a standalone server.
The problem is that dovecot refuses to start up at boot because the PID file from before the power loss is left behind. The message is as follows:
$ /sbin/service dovecot start Starting Dovecot Imap: Error: Dovecot is already running with PID 10825 (read from /var/run/dovecot/master.pid) Fatal: Invalid configuration in /etc/dovecot.conf [FAILED] (Note: there is nothing wrong in the configuration file so the error message is somewhat misleading.)
I looked at the release notes of 1.0.xx releases and they didn't mention this.
Is this already a known problem? Should the start-up logic be made more robust (e.g. check whether a process corresponding to the PID actually exists)?
-- Pekka Savola "You each name yourselves king, yet the Netcore Oy kingdom bleeds." Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings