[BlueOnyx:12603] Re: Dovecot dies with anvil too many open files

[Gregg]

I wonder if I'm having the same problems.
On one server I'm getting these:
dovecot: pop3-login: Error: auth: connect(login) failed: Connection refused

dovecot: imap-login: Error: auth: connect(login) failed: Connection refused

I have to manually kill all dovecot processes and have it restart before
people can log in again.
Could this also be a similar issue?
Gregg


> -----Original Message-----
> From: blueonyx-bounces at mail.blueonyx.it [mailto:blueonyx-
> bounces at mail.blueonyx.it] On Behalf Of Gerald Waugh
> Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 7:31 AM
> To: BlueOnyx General Mailing List
> Subject: [BlueOnyx:12602] Re: Dovecot dies with anvil too many open
> files
> 
> On 03/22/2013 08:38 AM, David Thacker wrote:
> > Greetings all,
> >
> > I have a recurring problem where Dovecot chokes under heavy load
> > (login break-in attempts) and has to be manually restarted. The
> > problem used to happen once or twice a month, but lately happens at
> > least once a day and is now a reliability problem for my hosting
> clients.
> >
> > I do have the Security > Login Manager > Host rule set to 30/h but it
> > doesn't solve it.
> >
> > I will get an Active Monitor texted to my phone within 15 minutes of
> > Dovecot choking, but if it happens overnight it can be several hours
> > before I notice and can correct it.
> >
> > The problem reported in the mail logs is this:
> >
> >      Error: net_connect_unix(anvil) failed: Too many open files
> >
> > which is exactly as this poster described on the Dovecot mailing list
> > here:
> >
> >      http://dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2012-October/069070.html
> >
> > A response to that post offered this suggested solution:
> >
> >      http://dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2012-October/069111.html
> >
> > which was to increase the max open files allowed for the Dovecot
> process.
> >
> > On my system when I "cat /proc/<pid of anvil process>/limits" I get:
> >
> >      Max open files            4096                 4096
> > files
> >
> > So, I stopped & killalled Dovecot, then did "ulimit -n 8192" and then
> > "service dovecot restart", and when I check again, I still see max
> > open files 4096 instead of 8192.
> >
> >
> > 1. Can anyone help me figure out how to increase the max open files
> > that Dovecot anvil has to work with, to see if this will solve the
> > heavy-usage choking problem?
> >
> > or
> >
> > 2. Can anyone suggest a way that the Active Monitor script that
> > recognizes that "The POP server is not running and could not be
> > restarted" could be modified to actually restart Dovecot on its own
> so
> > I don't have to do it manually?
> >
> we use iptables rate rules to stop these (published earlier) have
> thousands of blocks by iptables, makes a big iptables log file, but
> dovecot keeps running
> 
> --
> Gerald
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