dovecot - May 2006 - IMAP server <defunct> (beta 7)

Hi,

We've been using a 0.99 version of Dovecot for nearly a year without  
problems, but due to a server death I had to reinstall with the same  
configuration as before, but more recent versions of the software, on  
different hardware.

This time though, every few days IMAP login and access fails, and the  
output of ps ax shows entries such as [imap-login] <defunct> and  
[imap] <defunct>, with the lovely brain-eating Zombie status. There  
is nothing in the log file that suggests an issue.

We're using dovecot with authentication/etc being done against a  
Postgresql database. I searched online for a solution, but the  
nearest problem said it was a problem with PAM, which we are not  
using with Dovecot. We're using Maildir as the message storage format.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why this might be occurring?  
If it will help to see the dovecot configuration files then I can  
provide them.

The platform is Debian 64-bit running on a dual-core Opteron system.  
Yes, it isn't Debian-stable!

Graham

Hi,

It happens in beta 8 as well, but I've narrowed it down to failing  
when the system clock is changed back.

The server we're having problems on has a wayward clock that gains 30  
minutes a week, and I've just realised that Dovecot zombifies itself  
whenever I've corrected the time. I've now just installed openntpd to  
keep it more in sync (and dovecot died upon the initial time  
synchronisation), and I'm hoping that dovecot doesn't die on me every  
time the time is corrected by the ntp client.

Graham


Begin forwarded message:
> From: Graham Briggs <graham at historicalengineering.com>
> Date: 17 May 2006 14:36:10 BDT
> To: dovecot at dovecot.org
> Subject: [Dovecot] IMAP server <defunct> (beta 7)
>
> Hi,
>
> We've been using a 0.99 version of Dovecot for nearly a year  
> without problems, but due to a server death I had to reinstall with  
> the same configuration as before, but more recent versions of the  
> software, on different hardware.
>
> This time though, every few days IMAP login and access fails, and  
> the output of ps ax shows entries such as [imap-login] <defunct>  
> and [imap] <defunct>, with the lovely brain-eating Zombie status.  
> There is nothing in the log file that suggests an issue.
>
> We're using dovecot with authentication/etc being done against a  
> Postgresql database. I searched online for a solution, but the  
> nearest problem said it was a problem with PAM, which we are not  
> using with Dovecot. We're using Maildir as the message storage format.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions as to why this might be occurring?  
> If it will help to see the dovecot configuration files then I can  
> provide them.
>
> The platform is Debian 64-bit running on a dual-core Opteron  
> system. Yes, it isn't Debian-stable!
>
> Graham
>