[Dovecot] imap-login process_limit reached

[Don Buchholz]

I've been having some problems with IMAP user connections to the Dovecot 
(v2.0.8) server.  The following message is being logged.

    Jan 16 10:51:36 postal dovecot: master: Warning:
    service(imap-login): process_limit reached, client connections are
    being dropped

The server is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 4 (update 6).
Dovecot is v2.0.8.

We have only 29 user accounts in /etc/dovecot/users.  There were 196 
"dovecot/imap" processes and 6 other dovecot processes, for a total of 
202 "dovecot" processes, listed in the 'ps aux' output when problems 
were being experienced.

Stopping and restarting the Dovecot system fixes the problem -- for a while.

The 'doveconf -n' output is attached.  I have not set any 
"process_limit" values, and I don't think I'm getting anywhere close to 
the 1024 default, so I'm pretty confused as to what might be wrong.

Any suggestions on what to do next are appreciated.

Thanks,
- Don

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