[Dovecot] Defunct processes w/ v1.2.1

[Chris O'Regan]

I have limited information at the moment (currently distracted by other
projects) but I'm hoping that someone has already found and solved this
problem.

I have a v1.2.1 installed on my development box waiting for me to tinker
with the configuration. On several occasions, I have noticed that all
the dovecot processes are listed as "defunct". I don't recall seeing
anything significant in the logs the last time I checked. The system is
not under any load.

Has anyone else encountered this before? If not, I will dig deeper. BTW,
ignore the fd limit warning below; limits are set in the init script.

# /local/bin/dovecot -n
# 1.2.1: /local/pkg/dovecot-1.2.1/root/etc/dovecot.conf
Warning: fd limit 1024 is lower than what Dovecot can use under full
load (more than 10240). Either grow the limit or change
login_max_processes_count and max_mail_processes settings
# OS: Linux 2.4.21-58.ELsmp i686 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 3
(Taroon Update 9) 
listen: localhost
ssl_listen: *
ssl_cert_file: /usr/share/ssl/certs/mail.encs.pem
ssl_key_file: /usr/share/ssl/certs/mail.encs.pem
login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable: /local/pkg/dovecot-1.2.1/root/libexec/dovecot/imap-login
login_processes_count: 32
login_max_processes_count: 2048
max_mail_processes: 8192
first_valid_uid: 200
mail_location: mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%1u/%
u:INDEX=/local/data/dovecot/indexes/mail/%1u/%u
namespace:
  type: private
  separator: /
  inbox: yes
  list: yes
  subscriptions: yes
namespace:
  type: private
  separator: /
  prefix: mail/
  hidden: yes
  list: no
  subscriptions: yes
namespace:
  type: private
  separator: /
  prefix: ~/mail/
  hidden: yes
  list: no
  subscriptions: yes
namespace:
  type: private
  separator: /
  prefix: ~%u/mail/
  hidden: yes
  list: no
  subscriptions: yes
auth default:
  passdb:
    driver: pam
  userdb:
    driver: passwd


-- 
Chris O'Regan <chris at encs.concordia.ca>
Senior Unix Systems Administrator, Academic IT Services
Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
Concordia University, Montreal, Canada