[arch-general] Dovecot imap processes pinning CPU

RedShift redshift at pandora.be
Sat Dec 13 04:35:37 EST 2008


Hello

David Rosenstrauch wrote:
> In recent days, dovecot's "imap" processes keep getting stuck.  Each time
> I check my server there's a bunch of "imap" processes (sometimes 2 of
> them, sometimes 4, sometimes 6) that are using all of the box's CPU.
> 
> And worse, there's no way to kill the processes either (neither kill -15
> or kill -9 works), which means that I wind up having to reboot the box
> every time this happens.  REALLY irritating.
> 
> I don't normally even *see* the imap processes in htop, as I think they're
> pretty short lived.  And I'm not sure what they're looping trying to do. 
> My debugging skills on Linux are a bit weak, and so I don't know how to
> look at the process and see what it's doing.

I see quite a few imap (and imap-login) processes hanging around, always have. But they are generally idling, not using 100% CPU like in your case.

> 
> Also, not sure what's changed on my system to cause this, as this is
> definitely a recent problem.  Maybe the upgrade to Thunderbird 2.0.0.18
> (since I usually use T'Bird to access my email).  I don't seem to run into
> this problem when I use Squirrelmail.

Interesting. If this really is a fault then a bugreport must be sent to the dovecot developper with high priority (as this could lead to a DoS attack) and to the mozilla team indicating something's wrong with how they talk to certain IMAP servers.

> 
> Anyone have any idea what the problem might be?  Or, if not, then
> suggestions on how I might be able to debug the situation myself?
> 

Start here: http://www.dovecot.org/bugreport.html


Glenn



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