Re: [cobalt-users] Mail connection refused intermittently

["Larry E. Smith" <lesmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Vivek,

> We seem to be having a quirk with mail on our Raq4r. When trying to connect 
> to the pop server, it says that the connection has been refused. After a 
> while, it allows connections and then again stops. It doesn't appear that 
> it is hitting connection limit because when it is refusing connections, it 
> doesn't appear that any one is connected. Any one have any ideas?

  May be way off base here, but believe there is a "built-in"
  limitation in pretty much all *nix systems on "how many"
  connections they will accept within a set period without
  "stopping" the service.

  This "feature" of the kernel is designed to prevent a
  run-away-process from eating all resources.

  What we did was "modify" the inetd.conf to "up" the number of
  pop3 processes that are allowed by adding a number after the
  nowait parameter:

  EX (strickly example, I am not in front of the machine):

  pop3 stream tcp  nowait.500  root /usr/sbin/tcpd   in.qpopper


  The "nowait.500" says allow up to 500 connections per.....

  Your mileage may vary, but would first check and see why the
  box would be taking that number of connections unless
  absolutely everyone is running a "popper" or such to query mail
  every 15 seconds....  Check your maillog for "in.qpopper"
  connections and see if you have users/customers/whatever
  checking mail every few "seconds" instead of 5 to 10 minutes...

Larry Smith
SysAd ECSIS.NET
sysad@xxxxxxxxx