[Dovecot] Problem with ldap error logging

[Stefano Fedrigo]

Timo Sirainen wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-08-24 at 11:07 +0200, Stefano Fedrigo wrote:
>> I configured dovecot to authenticate through ldap.  When for some reason the
>> ldap server is not working dovecot writes this message to the system log:
>>
>> dovecot: auth(default): accept(type 1) failed: Too many open files
>>
>> "Too many open files" is caused by an openldap bug.
> 
> Do you know what bug? What does Dovecot log before those errors? I
> haven't had this problem when LDAP server goes down.

Openldap opens many times /lib/libnspr4.so, until hits the max open files
limit.  I suspect the problem is this one:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=496997

But applying the suggested patch doesn't resolve it.

This patch seems to be the cause:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=502133#c19

The version of dovecot is on Fedora 11, 1.2.3-1.

I see nothing strange in logs before the errors.  I turned on "auth_verbose"
and "auth_debug" options in case it happens again.

>> The serious problem is
>> that dovecot repeats that message a huge number of times, something like 20000
>> times per second, until the ldap daemon starts working or, more likely, no more
>> disk space remains.
> 
> I guess I could work around it, but then again no one else has had this
> problem.. It'll be fixed in v2.0 in any case.

Of course the main problem is with Openldap, but such a fix could be very
useful to improve system's reliability when using Dovecot.

-- 
  // Stefano Fedrigo - Develer S.r.l.
\X/  http://www.develer.com