dovecot - Nov 2008 - Dovecot POP3 problem: Authentication suddenly fails until dovecot gets restarted

Hi,

 

I am running dovecot with postfix and OTRS2 on a fresh Ubuntu 8.10
Server system.

 

OTRS2 is configured to poll new email to otrs-incoming at localhost via
POP3 every 5 minutes. It works, but after approximately 20 hours it
suddenly stops working and only a restart of dovecot helps.

 

The outage starts at different times during night (00:15 on Thursday,
1:15 on Friday, 3:20 on Saturday). I checked all cron-jobs, but couldn't
find anything matching.

 

Anyone any idea? Thanks, carsten

 

 

Mail.log:

Nov 29 07:10:13 wombat dovecot: auth-worker(default):
pam(otrs-incoming,127.0.0.1): pam_start() failed: Critical error -
immediate abort

Nov 29 07:10:14 wombat dovecot: pop3-login: Aborted login (auth failed,
1 attempts): user=<otrs-incoming>, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1,
lip=127.0.0.1, secured

 

 

Dovecot.conf:

protocols = pop3 pop3s

log_timestamp = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S "

mail_location =  mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u

mail_privileged_group = mail

protocol imap {

}

protocol pop3 {

  pop3_uidl_format = %08Xu%08Xv

}

protocol managesieve {

  sieve=~/.dovecot.sieve

  sieve_storage=~/sieve

}

auth default {

  mechanisms = plain

  passdb pam {

  }

  userdb passwd {

  }

  user = root

}

dict {

}

plugin {

}

 

 

/etc/pam.d/dovecot:

#%PAM-1.0

@include common-auth

@include common-account

@include common-session

 

 

Manual test of POP3 Authentication:

root at localhost:/etc/pam.d# telnet localhost 110

Trying 127.0.0.1...

Connected to localhost.

Escape character is '^]'.

+OK Dovecot ready.

user otrs-incoming

+OK

pass XXXXXX

-ERR Temporary authentication failure.

On Sat, 2008-11-29 at 07:45 +0100, Carsten Buchenau
wrote:
> Nov 29 07:10:13 wombat dovecot: auth-worker(default):
> pam(otrs-incoming,127.0.0.1): pam_start() failed: Critical error -
> immediate abort
Set this to non-zero:

# Number of auth requests to handle before destroying the process. This may
# be useful if PAM plugins leak memory.
#auth_worker_max_request_count = 0

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Thank you very much!

I set:

  auth_worker_max_request_count = 10

and I wasn't swamped by 100 emails this morning, so I assume it did the
job.



I received the following though, only once, coming from the POP3 poller
process. I assume this might be a result of Dovecot replying with a
value that the Poller doesn't understand? Due to the limit set with the
config line from above?

Use of uninitialized value in numeric eq (==) at
/usr/share/perl/5.10/Net/POP3.pm line 320, <PRODUCT> line 4.
Use of uninitialized value in numeric eq (==) at
/usr/share/perl/5.10/Net/POP3.pm line 316, <PRODUCT> line 4.
ERROR: OTRS-PM3-10 Perl: 5.10.0 OS: linux Time: Mon Dec  1 01:07:08 2008

 Message: Auth for user otrs-incoming at localhost failed!

 Traceback (16717): 
   Module: main::FetchMail (v1.25) Line: 162
   Module: /usr/share/otrs/bin/PostMasterPOP3.pl (v1.25) Line: 125



Thanks again,
Carsten

Carsten Buchenau
EDIFICE COMMUNICATIONS SA
carsten.buchenau at edificom.ch


-----Original Message-----
From: Timo Sirainen [mailto:tss at iki.fi] 
Sent: Sonntag, 30. November 2008 02:04
To: Carsten Buchenau
Cc: dovecot at dovecot.org
Subject: Re: [Dovecot] Dovecot POP3 problem: Authentication suddenly
failsuntil dovecot gets restarted

On Sat, 2008-11-29 at 07:45 +0100, Carsten Buchenau
wrote:
> Nov 29 07:10:13 wombat dovecot: auth-worker(default):
> pam(otrs-incoming,127.0.0.1): pam_start() failed: Critical error - 
> immediate abort
Set this to non-zero:

# Number of auth requests to handle before destroying the process. This
may # be useful if PAM plugins leak memory.
#auth_worker_max_request_count = 0