I'm seeing this message in my /var/log/maillog:

May 26 12:35:00 agencymail dovecot: IMAP(info@example.com): Inotify instance limit for user exceeded, disabling. Increase /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances

I rummaged through google, and found : http://www.dovecot.org/list/dovecot-cvs/2008-May/011132.html

which says I need to increase /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances (no surprise given the error message really). I can fix that with echo 256 > /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances , but as /proc is temporary, so if I change it won't it break if/when the system reboots?

The error message also implies that something has been disabled. If I increase /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances will it fix automatically, or do I need to do something else? since it's a kernel message, I suspect just restarting dovecot won't do it.

And what exactly is breaking when I receive this notification? The proc docs indicate: /proc/sys/fs/inotify (since Linux 2.6.13) This directory contains files max_queued_events, max_user_instances, and max_user_watches, that can be used to limit the amount of kernel memory consumed by the inotify interface. For further details, see http://linux.die.net/man/7/inotifyinotify(7).

Is this dovecot monitoring for new mail?

thanks

Rick

[root@agencymail inotify]# dovecot -n # 1.1.8: /etc/dovecot.conf # OS: Linux 2.6.18-92.el5 i686 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.2 (Tikanga) ext3 ssl_cert_file: /etc/httpd/certs/agencymail_example_com.crt ssl_key_file: /etc/httpd/certs/agencymail.example.com.key.no.password login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login login_executable(default): /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(imap): /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(pop3): /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3-login login_max_processes_count: 256 mail_uid: 1015 mail_gid: 105 mail_location: maildir:/var/spool/mail/%d/%n/Maildir mail_executable(default): /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap mail_executable(imap): /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap mail_executable(pop3): /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3 mail_plugins(default): acl quota imap_quota expire trash mail_plugins(imap): acl quota imap_quota expire trash mail_plugins(pop3): expire quota mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3 imap_client_workarounds(default): delay-newmail outlook-idle imap_client_workarounds(imap): delay-newmail outlook-idle imap_client_workarounds(pop3): pop3_client_workarounds(default): pop3_client_workarounds(imap): pop3_client_workarounds(pop3): outlook-no-nuls oe-ns-eoh dict_db_config: /etc/dovecot-db.conf auth default: mechanisms: plain login passdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot-sql.conf userdb: driver: passwd userdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot-sql.conf userdb: driver: static socket: type: listen client: path: /var/spool/postfix/private/auth mode: 432 user: postfix group: postfix master: path: /var/run/dovecot/auth-master mode: 384 user: vuser group: vuser plugin: quota: maildir quota_rule: *:storage=102400000 quota_rule2: Trash:storage=100M acl: vfile:/etc/dovecot/acls trash: /etc/dovecot-trash.conf expire: Trash 14 Trash/* 14 Spam 14 expire_dict: proxy::expire dict: expire: mysql:/etc/dovecot-dict-expire.conf

Rick Steeves http://www.sinister.net

"The more I learn, it seems, the less I know." Frazz