[BlueOnyx:12155] Re: Dovecot Error: socketpair() failed: Too manyopenfiles

[Ken - Precision Web Hosting, Inc]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Thacker" <David at ThackerNet.com>
To: "BlueOnyx General Mailing List" <blueonyx at mail.blueonyx.it>
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 2:47 PM
Subject: [BlueOnyx:12154] Re: Dovecot Error: socketpair() failed: Too 
manyopenfiles


>> 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
>


How many dovecot processes are running?
Who is trying to log in? Is it a brute force password guessing attack?

----
Ken Marcus