Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : imap failed - WHM

[kshazad86]

My imap server and ftp server recently went down, this is the error message:

imap failed @ Sat Mar 31 16:24:26 2012. A restart was attempted automagically.

Service Check Method: [tcp connect]

Failure Reason: TCP Transaction Log:
<< * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE STARTTLS AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=LOGIN] Dovecot ready.
>> A001 LOGIN __cpanel__service__auth__imap__uCeFVYK6RjR1jkVsqE3cKLjIfAZq6704l8cBxSBQDCZ5c7DcqEyam5CL7XPabfPQ KvOtYihPYk8T1oAeCdGZLChz51HCgGTvNIypa1wD0s9mKKRe3phDU0W5J7gQasNl
<< * OK Waiting for authentication process to respond..
imap: ** [* OK Waiting for authentication process to respond.. != A001 OK]
: Died at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/TailWatch/ChkServd.pm line 572, <GEN4> line 2.


Number of Restart Attempts: 1

Any ideas how I can investigate the root cause?

[cd/home]

Originally Posted by kshazad86

Any ideas how I can investigate the root cause?

Taking alook at the server logs would be a start

[kshazad86]

Problem is log files are not showing anything at all.

[kshazad86]

Also, the main log file, /var/log/messages is a bit mesed up, as sometimes the timestamp is in the wrong order.

[kshazad86]

Does FTP have a separate log file, and what is its location?

[kshazad86]

ok, this is what I have so far:

- exim timed out, cant find the reason as the logs dont reveal anything. Is there a chance that somebody tried sending too many mails to the server, and therefore the exim queue timed out, which inturn caused imap to fail?

[jfnllc]

Dovecot/auth looks to be the problem. Have you /scripts/restartsrv_dovecot yet?

[jfnllc]

Also, paste the parts of /log/messages that look 'weird' to you. Would be happy to tell you if what you're seeing is normal activity.

[mohamedjpali]

Try it: /scripts/upcp

[LevelHosting Inc]

Originally Posted by kshazad86

My imap server and ftp server recently went down, this is the error message:





Any ideas how I can investigate the root cause?

Dovecot is known to have some issues with crashing or failing to respond due to issues related to the internal clock of the server being changed via syncing. You should try swapping to Courier.

If IMAP still continues to fail most likely your server is reaching its maximum IMAP connection limit quite a few times. In turn this will cause chkservd to restart the service, as it could not connect.

At this point you would want to raise this limit in WHM -> Service Configuration -> Mailserver Configuration -> Maximum IMAP Connections (Total). I believe increasing the IMAP Connections limit to 100 would be more than sufficient and solve your problems in addition to swapping Dovecot for Courier.

You should also note, switching mail servers may cause some mail clients to re-download all stored mail messages for their account. This is primarily seen with POP3 configured accounts.

Hopefully this solves your problem.