Hello John,

I have answered in more detail in another email.

After reading a lot more about this topic I believe it is not a timeout issue 
but more of
a memory allocation issue. 

E.g.: 
https://www.openwall.com/lists/yescrypt/2024/03/20/2

In the above thread it is claimed that: The value 11 results in 1 GiB memory 
usage

That is a lot. I will refrain from using that. I will go for a value of 7. That 
is good
enough.

Kind Regards
Matthias



Am Freitag, dem 16.01.2026 um 14:16 +0100 schrieb John Fawcett via dovecot:
> Hi Matthias
> 
> I'm pretty sure that this value (AUTH_FAILURE_DELAY_CHECK_MSECS) is the 
> delay that Dovecot waits after the failure before reporting it, so not 
> really relevant since the failure has already happened when that comes 
> into play.
> 
> Out of curiosity, when you do the test that fails, how long did it take 
> before it failed?
> 
> Maybe there is a timeout configured in pam (e.g. LOGIN_TIMEOUT in 
> login.defs) or elsewhere.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> On 11/01/2026 10:11, Matthias Bodenbinder via dovecot wrote:
> > Am Freitag, dem 09.01.2026 um 10:30 +0100 schrieb Matthias Bodenbinder via 
> > dovecot:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > dovecot does not work with ENCRYPT_METHOD YESCRYPT and 
> > > YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR=11.
> > > I have tested with 2.4.2-4 and 2.3.21.1-4 on endeavouros.
> > > 
> > > When changing YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR to 11 in /etc/login.defs and 
> > > recreacting the user
> > > password for my user and restarting the dovecot service I get:
> > > 
> > > # doveadm auth test matthias
> > > Password:
> > > passdb: matthias auth failed
> > > extra fields:
> > >    user=matthias
> > >    
> > > When reverting the change to YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR=5 it works again:
> > > 
> > > # doveadm auth test matthias
> > > Password:
> > > passdb: matthias auth succeeded
> > > extra fields:
> > >    user=matthias
> > >   
> > > 
> > > I have tested this back and forth. The culprit is definitely a high value 
> > > for
> > > YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR. A value of 7 is still good but a value of 9 or 11 
> > > fails.
> > 
> > Can it be that this problem has to do with
> > 
> > #define AUTH_FAILURE_DELAY_CHECK_MSECS 500
> > 
> > in auth-request-handler.c ?
> > 
> > Increasing the YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR for the password hashing will certainly 
> > extend the
> > time of the pam auth process.
> > 
> > Matthias
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > dovecot mailing list [email protected]
> > To unsubscribe send an email [email protected]
>    Hi Matthias
> 
>    I'm pretty sure that this value (AUTH_FAILURE_DELAY_CHECK_MSECS) is the
>    delay that Dovecot waits after the failure before reporting it, so not
>    really relevant since the failure has already happened when that comes
>    into play.
> 
>    Out of curiosity, when you do the test that fails, how long did it take
>    before it failed?
> 
>    Maybe there is a timeout configured in pam (e.g. LOGIN_TIMEOUT in
>    login.defs) or elsewhere.
> 
>    John
> 
>    On 11/01/2026 10:11, Matthias Bodenbinder via dovecot wrote:
> 
>  Am Freitag, dem 09.01.2026 um 10:30 +0100 schrieb Matthias Bodenbinder via 
> dovecot:
> 
>  Hi,
> 
>  dovecot does not work with ENCRYPT_METHOD YESCRYPT and 
> YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR=11.
>  I have tested with 2.4.2-4 and 2.3.21.1-4 on endeavouros.
> 
>  When changing YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR to 11 in /etc/login.defs and recreacting 
> the user
>  password for my user and restarting the dovecot service I get:
> 
>  # doveadm auth test matthias
>  Password:
>  passdb: matthias auth failed
>  extra fields:
>    user=matthias
> 
>  When reverting the change to YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR=5 it works again:
> 
>  # doveadm auth test matthias
>  Password:
>  passdb: matthias auth succeeded
>  extra fields:
>    user=matthias
> 
> 
>  I have tested this back and forth. The culprit is definitely a high value for
>  YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR. A value of 7 is still good but a value of 9 or 11 
> fails.
> 
> 
>  Can it be that this problem has to do with
> 
>  #define AUTH_FAILURE_DELAY_CHECK_MSECS 500
> 
>  in auth-request-handler.c ?
> 
>  Increasing the YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR for the password hashing will certainly 
> extend the
>  time of the pam auth process.
> 
>  Matthias
> 
>  _______________________________________________
>  dovecot mailing list -- [1][email protected]
>  To unsubscribe send an email to [2][email protected]
> 
> References
> 
>    Visible links
>    1. mailto:[email protected]
>    2. mailto:[email protected]
> _______________________________________________
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> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]


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