On Qui, 2009-06-25 at 11:15 -0700, V S Rao wrote: > > > Doing a "ps aux" on my Slackware box, I have approx 100 PID's of > > > "pop3-login's going on. This is a production mail server, but it is > > > getting VERY low traffic. In fact, only 3 people can "pop3" into it. > > > I've check their e-mail clients, and they are not checking mail any more > > > often than every 5 minutes. > > > > > > This is a new installation and I've had the server up and running since > > > Sunday. If it matters, I'm using Postfix for the MTA and using the > > > Dovecot SASL library to AUTH SMTP. > > > > > > Is this a cause for concern? Why does Dovecot need this many processes? > > > > > > > >> Because dovecot preforks the *-login processes to speed-up the login. > > > > >> No need to worry. > > > > 100 login sessions for just 3 connections? That is not right, no matter > > what. > > >> No, login_processes_count matters. > > How? If my understanding is correct, you have extra 3 login processes created > to cater to new connections. So with only 3 POP3 users, why should so many > login processes be spawned? I can understand 10-15. But 100 definitely > indicates either the processes are not dying or something else happening on > the system which is causing such high number of login processes. The system > definitely needs to be checked for some kind of attack, a rogue process > running on the system or something else. >
If you don't change the defaults that's right. But the *-login processes will never be less than login_processes_count so it does matter. And, as timo pointed out, you can put a upper limit with login_max_processes_count. My idle box has 64 imap-login processes and no, I'm not under a dictionary attack :) -- Jose Celestino SAPO.pt::Systems http://www.sapo.pt --------------------------------------------------------------------- * Progress (n.): The process through which Usenet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals.
