dovecot - Sep 2003 - Multiple instances of .customflags staying open

# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.4.20-18.9 (bhcompile at daffy.perf.redhat.com) (gcc version
3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)) #1 Thu May 29 07:09:43 EDT 2003
# dovecot --version
0.99.10

I've just recently noticed a serious problem with my system. After about
an hour or so I get errors in /var/log/maillog such as this;
Sep 21 06:40:16 the-system imap(ray): opendir() failed with file \
\/home/ray/Maildir//new: Too many open files

I investigated with 'lsof' and found that many copies of
'.customflags'
were open for each and every folder. ie; Each folder's
'.customflags'
file was open 15 times!

I suspect that postfix is not able to store newly collected email while
this is occuring, therefore I am likely losing messages.

I've tried with multiple mail clients (Sylpheed & Evolution) and
multiple users, always with the same result.

Further investigation indicates that each time the client scans for new
mail another instance of each and every '.customflags' is opened. As I
have the client set for checking at five minute intervals then it was
probably 75 minutes until the client barfed. Less, if I manualy scan for
new mail a few times.

If I shutdown the client and restart it then everything is fine for
about an hour. Running 'lsof /home/ray/Maildir/.customflags' on the
server I can see the list of files increasing each time the client
checks for new mail.

Any help would be appreciated!

On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 16:13, Ron wrote:
> I've just recently noticed a serious problem with my system. After
about
> an hour or so I get errors in /var/log/maillog such as this;
> Sep 21 06:40:16 the-system imap(ray): opendir() failed with file \
> \/home/ray/Maildir//new: Too many open files
> 
> I investigated with 'lsof' and found that many copies of
'.customflags'
> were open for each and every folder. ie; Each folder's
'.customflags'
> file was open 15 times!
Could it be that your .customflags files are not writable to users?
That's the only code path that I can see it leaking file descriptors for
.customflags. Attached patch should also fix it.


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On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 17:28:48 +0300 Timo Sirainen (Timo Sirainen
<tss at iki.fi>) said:
> On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 16:13, Ron wrote:
> > I've just recently noticed a serious problem with my system. After
> > about an hour or so I get errors in /var/log/maillog such as this;
> > Sep 21 06:40:16 the-system imap(ray): opendir() failed with file \
> > \/home/ray/Maildir//new: Too many open files
> > 
> > I investigated with 'lsof' and found that many copies of
> > '.customflags' were open for each and every folder. ie; Each
> > folder's '.customflags' file was open 15 times!
> 
> Could it be that your .customflags files are not writable to users?
No, they're all writable to the user.
> That's the only code path that I can see it leaking file descriptors
> for.customflags. Attached patch should also fix it.
This is likely a dumb question, but how do I apply the patch? I'm no
programmer, just an admin/user.

btw, the situation got worse today. I couldn't keep the mail client
running for more than a minute at a time. This is a real nuicence.

Thanks for the speedy reply!