[Dovecot] rc7 crashing under heavy load

[Chris Wakelin]

Too many open files - try increasing the number of file handles for the 
Dovecot master process; I use "plimit -n 4096 <Dovecot master pid>"

Login process died too early - are you using NIS? It's too slow for 
Dovecot, I think. We create a Dovecot "passwd-file" from NIS overnight 
and then "HUP" the Dovecot master process to make it re-read it (we use 
it only for UIDs, as we use pam-ldap to Active Directory for 
authentication, but it could have the passwords in as well). Dovecot 
caches the passwd-file so it's very quick.

Hope this helps,
Chris

Jeff A. Earickson wrote:
> Help!
> 
> Our students are back and they are pounding my dovecot server
> to death (ie "Login process died too early - shutting down" or
> "too many open files" type crash).  I've had my third crash
> today.
> 
> My setup: Solaris 10, imap and imaps, 3K users coming in via horde
> webmail.  My current connection settings are:
> 
> login_max_processes_count = 2048
> login_max_connections = 4096
> 
> Q: Does raising these limits actually make my problem worse or better? Are
> there any other variables that I should change to
> prevent the "too many open files"?  Suggestions?
> 
> Jeff Earickson
> Colby College

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Christopher Wakelin,                           c.d.wakelin at reading.ac.uk
IT Services Centre, The University of Reading,  Tel: +44 (0)118 378 8439
Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AF, UK              Fax: +44 (0)118 975 3094