[Dovecot] Dovecot: pipe() failed: Too many open files

[Jack Bates]

I'm using RHEL6 instead of ubuntu, but check the startup scripts. In 
RHEL's case, the following file is sourced, so I updated it instead of 
the startup scripts.

cat /etc/sysconfig/dovecot
# Here you can specify your dovecot command line options.
#
#OPTIONS=""
ulimit -n 4096
ulimit -u 5120

In addition, I had to also up the max allowed processes in the dovecot 
config. 2.x and 1.x are different on this.

http://wiki1.dovecot.org/LoginProcess <-1.x method


Jack



On 10/17/2012 6:16 PM, Fasil wrote:
> Thanks Frank.
> Followed the URL and could not find any luck.
>
> Is there a way to change the value of 'max open files' of dovecot.
> I have tried to set the value in /etc/default/dovecot by setting 
> ulimit. But the value is not getting applied.
> Could anyone help on this regard.
>
> Fasil.
>
> On 08/16/2012 09:17 AM, Frank Bonnet wrote:
>> hello
>>
>> here some useful informations
>>
>> http://posidev.com/blog/2009/06/04/set-ulimit-parameters-on-ubuntu/
>>
>> Envoyé de mon iPhone.
>>
>>
>> Le 16 août 2012 à 02:52, Fasil <mailadmin at cubixys.com> a écrit :
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> Thank you all for such a wonderful support. Hats off to all :)
>>>
>>> Few times I came across imap login issues where new users will not 
>>> be allowed to login.
>>> /var/log/mail.err shows the error below
>>> Aug 12 07:57:46 mail dovecot: dovecot: pipe() failed: Too many open 
>>> files
>>> Aug 12 07:57:46 mail dovecot: dovecot: Temporary failure in creating 
>>> login processes, slowing down for now
>>> Aug 12 07:58:46 mail dovecot: dovecot: pipe() failed: Too many open 
>>> files
>>> Aug 12 07:59:46 mail dovecot: dovecot: pipe() failed: Too many open 
>>> files
>>> Aug 12 08:00:46 mail dovecot: dovecot: pipe() failed: Too many open 
>>> files
>>>
>>> I have a dovecot (V 1.2.9) +postfix (V 2.7.0) setup on ubuntu 10.04
>>>
>>> # ulimit -Hn
>>> 1024
>>>
>>> # ulimit -Sn
>>> 1024
>>>
>>> # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
>>> 1238548
>>>
>>> # cat /proc/`pidof dovecot`/limits | grep 'Max open'
>>> Max open files            1024                 1024 files
>>>
>>> Please advice how to get rid off this.
>>>
>>> Fasil.
>
>