[Dovecot] deliver: command died with signal 6

[Timo Sirainen]

On Jan 13, 2009, at 5:00 AM, Jan-Frode Myklebust wrote:

> We recently upgraded to dovecot v1.0.15 (from v1.0.0 + some local  
> fixes),
> and after this upgrade we've started to get a couple of failures  
> from deliver:
>
> Jan 12 20:34:34 smtp1.ulh.mydomain.net  
> deliver(someuser at somedomain.net):  Raw backtrace: /usr/local/dovecot/ 
> libexec/dovecot/deliver(i_syslog_panic_handler+0x1c) [0x45577c] -> / 
> usr/local/dovecot/libexec/dovecot/deliver [0x45537c] -> /usr/local/ 
> dovecot/libexec/dovecot/deliver(mail_index_sync_update_index+0x86f)  
> [0x43eb8f] ->

Before this raw backtrace there should have been a "Panic: Something"  
logged also. That's more important than the raw backtrace.

> Jan 13 10:37:59 atmail1.ulh.mydomain.net postfix/pipe[6320]:   
> BB3337E4E7: to=<quarantine at mydomain.net>, relay=dovecot, delay=2.3,  
> delays=0.06/0/0/2.2, dsn=5.3.0, status=bounced (Command died with  
> signal 6: "/usr/local/dovecot/libexec/dovecot/deliver")
>
> First, does anybody know if it's possible to change the behaviour here
> to not bounce, but retry instead ?

You could at least write a wrapper script to deliver that detects if  
it crashes and then returns EX_TEMPFAIL.

> And, is there anything we should do to debug further what the  
> problem might be ?

Does it always crash for the same user?