[Dovecot] How many imap processes per user

[Martijn de Munnik]

Hi,

I'm using dovecot for the first time on a production server (before  
dovecot I used bincimapd). I have a question about the number of imap  
(not imap-login) processes created for a user. I've seen 100+  
processes for just 1 user. So far it only occurs for 1 user, other  
users have just 1 imap process. I now the user is using thunderbird  
and 2 mailclients are logged in at the same time (one workstation and  
one laptop). Is there an issue with dovecot/thunderbird?

info at dem 28596 15780   0 10:48:41 ?           0:02 imap
info at dem 28933 15780   0 10:50:57 ?           0:01 imap
info at dem 25627 15780   0 10:28:55 ?           0:00 imap
info at dem 28938 28933   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 29472 15780   0 10:54:23 ?           0:00 imap
info at dem 25628 25627   0 10:28:55 ?           0:00 rawlog /opt/csw/ 
libexec/dovecot/imap
info at dem 29329 29327   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 29805 29801   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 24303 24300   0 10:20:46 ?           0:00 rawlog /opt/csw/ 
libexec/dovecot/imap
info at dem 29941 15780   0 10:58:09 ?           0:00 imap
info at dem 28480 28477   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 28329 15780   0 10:46:28 ?           0:03 imap
info at dem 29177 29176   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 28749 28748   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 29801 15780   0 10:56:56 ?           0:00 imap
info at dem 29180 29179   0 10:52:05 ?           0:00 rawlog /opt/csw/ 
libexec/dovecot/imap
info at dem 29635 15780   0 10:55:35 ?           0:00 imap
info at dem 29642 29635   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 28477 15780   1 10:47:37 ?           0:02 imap
info at dem 28200 28199   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 29942 29941   0 10:58:09 ?           0:00 rawlog /opt/csw/ 
libexec/dovecot/imap
info at dem 28597 28596   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 28330 28329   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 25610 25609   0 10:28:49 ?           0:00 rawlog /opt/csw/ 
libexec/dovecot/imap
info at dem 28748 15780   0 10:49:48 ?           0:02 imap
info at dem 25609 15780   0 10:28:49 ?           0:00 imap
info at dem 29176 15780   0 10:52:05 ?           0:01 imap
info at dem 29327 15780   0 10:53:12 ?           0:01 imap
info at dem 29179 15780   1 10:52:05 ?           0:05 imap
info at dem 28199 15780   0 10:45:22 ?           0:03 imap
info at dem 29474 29472   0        - ?           0:00 <defunct>
info at dem 24300 15780   0 10:20:46 ?           0:00 imap

All those processes are really slowing down the server.

Martijn