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@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@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

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