[BlueOnyx:12154] Re: Dovecot Error: socketpair() failed: Too many openfiles

[David Thacker]

> I googled around a bit and saw this post which seems relevant:
>
> http://hans.rakers.org/2011/05/dovecot-and-the-too-many-open-files-error/
>
> So, to try to prevent this in the future I made the recommended change 
> to
> /etc/sysconfig/dovecot which is to add this option (there were no other
> options in the file previously):
>
> # DT 2013-02-04 prevent too many open files error for email logins
> # Increase max open files for dovecot process
> ulimit -n 4096
>
> I restarted Dovecot again after making this change, and so far so good.

Actually, the same too-many-files error re-appeared a couple hours later, 
so I had to manually "service dovecot restart" again.

Is anyone else familiar with this error, and if so, how did you resolve 
it?

It's kinda weird that Active Monitor checks the imap service OK but most 
of the users get this error that prevents them from getting their mail. 
Actually, the users don't get an error message, they just don't get any 
mail. The error shows up in the logs. I guess that's why AM thinks it is 
OK.

David Thacker