dovecot - Jan 2008 - login_processes_count & login_max_processes_count question

re:
> # Maximum number of login processes to create. The listening process count
> # usually stays at login_processes_count, but when multiple users start
logging
> # in at the same time more extra processes are created. To prevent
fork-bombing
> # we check only once in a second if new processes should be created - if
all
> # of them are used at the time, we double their amount until the limit set
by
> # this setting is reached.
> #login_max_processes_count = 128
If the server is attacked by a password guessing routine, or just gets 
very busy, and login process count reaches 128, will the created 
processes ever get killed, or will dovecot continue to run 128 processes 
until it's restarted?

Thanks,
Ken


-- 
Ken Anderson
Pacific.Net

On Tue, 2008-01-22 at 07:58 -0600, Ken A wrote:
> re:
> 
> > # Maximum number of login processes to create. The listening process
count
> > # usually stays at login_processes_count, but when multiple users
start logging
> > # in at the same time more extra processes are created. To prevent
fork-bombing
> > # we check only once in a second if new processes should be created -
if all
> > # of them are used at the time, we double their amount until the limit
set by
> > # this setting is reached.
> > #login_max_processes_count = 128
> 
> If the server is attacked by a password guessing routine, or just gets 
> very busy, and login process count reaches 128, will the created 
> processes ever get killed, or will dovecot continue to run 128 processes 
> until it's restarted?
The "wanted process count" is decreased by one every second if there
are
non-busy login processes. Whenever a user logs in, Dovecot just doesn't
create a new login process if the current count is larger than wanted
count. So the count does eventually drop down.
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