Re: [Dovecot] [sfs: dovecot-auth file descriptor usage]

On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 10:33:19PM +0300, Odhiambo WASHINGTON wrote:

* On 10/01/07 10:43 -0600, Steven F Siirila wrote: | I am re-posting this message from last Friday, as I have seen no replies. | It is critical that we address this problem, since until then we cannot | put more than a few hundred users on our server.

I run a server with 8,000 accounts with dovecot rc15 all this time. A few hundred is not a big number, since it's less than 1000.

That was my point; we only have the ability to put a few hundred on the system, since any more than that causes us to start rejecting connections.

| If Dovecot-auth TRULY needs to keep open a file descriptor for every single | login session, we will have to start looking at alternatives.

Are you threatening someone?

No, I was thinking more along the lines of looking at different ways to solve the problem. For example, compiling in 64-bit mode gets around the Solaris limitation. Or, going away from Solaris (not really an option).

Seriously though, there must be something very broken in your OS, I think. I run FreeBSD 5.5-STABLE on about 40 systems, all with dovecot rc15 and each handling at least 100 accounts (bar for my big server with 8000+) and I don't hear complains...

Solaris 32 bit API prevents STDIO (FILE *) from referencing file descriptors greater than 255. That is because they value binary compatibility with older applications.

Why don't you start by switching OS? ;)

Not an option. Thanks for sharing your experiences; we are very interested in learning what our capacity limits might end up being BEFORE we reach them. :)

-Wash

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