Hi I'm using Dovecot version 1:1.2.15-7 installed on Debian Squeeze via apt-get.. I have this error in the logs. /var/log/mail.log.1:2490:Jan 19 12:02:55 mail dovecot: imap-login: Maximum number of connections from user+IP exceeded (mail_max_userip_connections): user=<user at example.com>, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, secured I never changed this from the default 10. When I googled this error there was a thread on this list from May 2011 that indicated one would need one connection per user per subscribed folder. However, I know that user doesn't have 10 folders, let alone 10 subscribed folders! I can increase, it but it's not going to scale well. And there are people on this list with many 1000x users than I have - so how do they deal with that? 127.0.0.1 is obviously webmail (IMP5). So, how/why am I seeing this, and should I be concerned? Simon
On 01/20/2012 06:06 PM, Simon Brereton wrote:> I have this error in the logs. > /var/log/mail.log.1:2490:Jan 19 12:02:55 mail dovecot: imap-login: > Maximum number of connections from user+IP exceeded > (mail_max_userip_connections): user=<user at example.com>, method=PLAIN, > rip=127.0.0.1, secured > > I never changed this from the default 10. When I googled this error > there was a thread on this list from May 2011 that indicated one would > need one connection per user per subscribed folder. However, I know > that user doesn't have 10 folders, let alone 10 subscribed folders! I > can increase, it but it's not going to scale well. And there are > people on this list with many 1000x users than I have - so how do they > deal with that? > > 127.0.0.1 is obviously webmail (IMP5). > > So, how/why am I seeing this, and should I be concerned?Well, it really does look like IMP is using more than 10 connections at the same time. Or perhaps some of the existing connections are just hanging for some reason after IMP already discarded them, such as maybe a very long running SEARCH command was started and IMP then gave up. You could look at the process list (with verbose_proctitle=yes) and check if the user has other processes hanging at the time when this error is logged.
Simon Brereton <simon.brereton at buongiorno.com> writes:> /var/log/mail.log.1:2490:Jan 19 12:02:55 mail dovecot: imap-login: > Maximum number of connections from user+IP exceeded > (mail_max_userip_connections): user=<user at example.com>, method=PLAIN, > rip=127.0.0.1, secured > > I never changed this from the default 10. When I googled this error > there was a thread on this list from May 2011 that indicated one would > need one connection per user per subscribed folder. However, I know > that user doesn't have 10 folders, let alone 10 subscribed folders! I > can increase, it but it's not going to scale well. And there are > people on this list with many 1000x users than I have - so how do they > deal with that? > > 127.0.0.1 is obviously webmail (IMP5).IMAP proxy or lack of proxy? IMAP proxy could be a problem if the user had opened more than 10 (unique) mailboxes. The proxy would keep this connection open until a timeout, and after some time, could accumulate more connections than your limit. The lack of proxy could solve your problem if for some reason your webmail software is not closing the IMAP connection properly (I assume IMP does a connect/authenticate/IMAP command/logout for every webmail operation). Every connection (even to the same mailbox) would open up a new connection. The proxy software will recognize the reconnnection and funnel it through its cached connection. You can lsof the user's IMAP processes (or troll through /proc/{imap-process} or what you have) to figure out which mailboxes it has opened. On my system, file descriptor 9 and 11 gives you the names of the index files that indicate which mailboxes are being accessed. Joseph Tam <jtam.home at gmail.com>