Hi,
I see a very peculiar Dovecot (2.3.21.1) authentication failure that concerns exactly one user:
Aug 20 02:08:05 Bounce dovecot: auth-worker(13245): Debug: conn unix:auth-worker (pid=3029,uid=81): auth-worker<24>: Handling PASSV request Aug 20 02:08:05 Bounce dovecot: auth-worker(13245): Debug: conn unix:auth-worker (pid=3029,uid=81): auth-worker<24>: passwd(REDACTED_UID,84.136.89.217,<yZxQxMA8uL1UiFnZ>): Performing passdb lookup Aug 20 02:08:05 Bounce dovecot: auth-worker(13245): Debug: conn unix:auth-worker (pid=3029,uid=81): auth-worker<24>: passwd(REDACTED_UID,84.136.89.217,<yZxQxMA8uL1UiFnZ>): lookup Aug 20 02:08:05 Bounce dovecot: auth-worker(13245): Error: conn unix:auth-worker (pid=3029,uid=81): auth-worker<24>: passwd(REDACTED_UID,84.136.89.217,<yZxQxMA8uL1UiFnZ>): getpwnam() failed: Resource temporarily unavailable Aug 20 02:08:05 Bounce dovecot: auth-worker(13245): Debug: conn unix:auth-worker (pid=3029,uid=81): auth-worker<24>: passwd(REDACTED_UID,84.136.89.217,<yZxQxMA8uL1UiFnZ>): Finished passdb lookup Aug 20 02:08:05 Bounce dovecot: auth-worker(13245): Debug: conn unix:auth-worker (pid=3029,uid=81): auth-worker<24>: Finished: internal_failure
This used to work, until a few months ago it stopped. The user can still authenticate to send mail through the same server. Changing the password didn't make a difference.
Any ideas?
Cheerio, Hauke
-- The ASCII Ribbon Campaign Hauke Fath () No HTML/RTF in email Institut für Nachrichtentechnik /\ No Word docs in email TU Darmstadt Respect for open standards Ruf +49-6151-16-21344
On Wed, 2025-08-20 at 12:33 +0200, Hauke Fath via dovecot wrote:
getpwnam() failed: Resource temporarily unavailable
hiya
EAGAIN failure from getpwnam() seems quite odd to me - especially if it only happens with one username.
A quick glance at current dovecot git source did not help my understanding. I can see how errno could be ENOMEM, EINVAL or ERANGE, but not really EAGAIN.
Is it possible the errno came from elsewhere somehow? Does this have auth_debug = yes? Any chance you can run a test with current release 2.4.1 or git head to see if it exhibits similar issues?
Not a dovecot dev, but if were me and debug logs did not reveal enough, I'd add some debugging print statements to src/lib/ipwd.c (thats where the 2.4.x call to getpwnam_r() is) to try figure out what is actually happening. I did not look to see how similar the old 2.3.x code is to 2.4.
Aki can likely offer real insight.
-- Gene
On 8/20/25 14:49, Genes Lists via dovecot wrote:
Is it possible the errno came from elsewhere somehow?
The error is reproducible, and only happens with this account (in ~6 weeks of log files). For this account, it happens from different client machines, and MUAs.
Does this have auth_debug = yes?
Yes, hence the verbosity.
Any chance you can run a test with current release 2.4.1 or git head to see if it exhibits similar issues?
It's a production machine. And since the recent comments here give me the impression that 2.4 should really have been called 3.0 Alpha, I think I'll pass.
Not a dovecot dev, but if were me and debug logs did not reveal enough, I'd add some debugging print statements to src/lib/ipwd.c (thats where the 2.4.x call to getpwnam_r() is) to try figure out what is actually happening. I did not look to see how similar the old 2.3.x code is to 2.4.
Thanks, I'll have a look at the code.
Cheerio, Hauke
-- The ASCII Ribbon Campaign Hauke Fath () No HTML/RTF in email Institut für Nachrichtentechnik /\ No Word docs in email TU Darmstadt Respect for open standards Ruf +49-6151-16-21344
participants (2)
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Genes Lists
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Hauke Fath