Re: [cobalt-users] RaQ4 - CPU overload

["Graeme Fowler" <graeme.f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ajongsma wrote:
> Why are there qpoppers from root? This mostly seems to happen when
inetd is
> restarted but that isn't the case and why do they take that much CPU
(he
> record I have seen is one qpopper with 86% CPU)?

qpopper starts from inetd, which runs as root. It first spawns a process
owned by root which reads in and copies the entire mailbox to another
file, then changes user ID to become the ID of the user who wants the
email. It is this mailbox read/copy which creates the load initially.

In a previous job, we used a very hacked-about version of qpopper which
ran in 'server mode' - it doesn't copy the mailbox and operates directly
on it. This can be A Bad Thing, unless you can guarantee that the only
mail access is via POP.

I'll reiterate what I said earlier: Don't leave mail on server. POP3 is
not really designed for it.

Graeme