Hi Mark, taking your advice, I've put "ulimit -n 8192 > /dev/null 2>&1" into /etc/profile. The problem is horribly intermittent, so it's now just a question of waiting...
Anyhow, many thanks for the tip - I'll post something to the list if the problem comes back ! Jake On Friday 06 February 2009 15:24, you wrote: > I reported a bug like this on 23rd Dec last year and Timo replied 8/1 > this year. However, I've seen this bug very infrequently and I'm not > sure that you're hitting it - it's more likely that your ulimit -n is > too low - try setting it to around 8192 (defaults to 1024 I think). It > should be around 3* max conns you expect to be on the safe side of > things. > > Mark > > -- > Mark Zealey -- Shared Hosting Team Leader > Product Development * Webfusion > 123-reg.co.uk, webfusion.co.uk, donhost.co.uk, supanames.co.uk > > This mail is subject to http://www.gxn.net/disclaimer > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: dovecot-bounces+mark.zealey=webfusion....@dovecot.org > > [mailto:dovecot-bounces+mark.zealey=webfusion....@dovecot.org] > > On Behalf Of Jake Grimmett > > Sent: 06 February 2009 15:15 > > To: dovecot@dovecot.org > > Subject: [Dovecot] help: "dovecot: pipe() failed: Too many open files" > > > > Dear All, > > > > I'm having an intermittent problem, with dovecot slowing to a crawl. > > Restarting dovecot fixes the problem. > > > > Looking at the maillog, I see loads of these errors.... > > > > dovecot: pipe() failed: Too many open files > > dovecot: Temporary failure in creating login processes, > > slowing down for now > > dovecot: Created login processes successfully, unstalling > > > > looking at the processes, I can see ~200 imap-login's and > > about ~700 imap's > > there are 1000 email accounts on the server - half of which > > are in regular > > use. > > > > The server is Dell PE1950 running dovecot (1.0.7-2.el5) as > > supplied with > > Centos 5.2 (~Redhat AS 5.2) in 64 bit mode. I've upgraded the > > server from 4 > > to 8GB of RAM, and from a dual core 1.5Ghz xeon, to a quad > > core 1.5GHz xeon, > > and this does not seem to help. > > > > The following settings were increased by me to try and stop > > this problem - but > > did not have an obvious effect: > > > > login_process_size = 128 > > login_process_per_connection = yes > > login_max_processes_count = 512 > > > > Other parameters were left commented out: > > > > #max_mail_processes = 1024 > > #auth_process_size = 256 > > > > > > If anyone has any ideas about where I might be going wrong, > > please let me > > know..! > > > > many thanks > > > > Jake > > > > -- > > Dr Jake Grimmett > > Head Of Scientific Computing > > MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology > > Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 0QH, UK. > > Phone 01223 402219 > > Mobile 0776 9886539 -- Dr Jake Grimmett Head Of Scientific Computing MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 0QH, UK. Phone 01223 402219 Mobile 0776 9886539
