Dovecot - stops responding

[SupermanInNY]

11378 ? Ss 0:00 dovecot
11383 ? S 0:00 \_ dovecot-auth
12372 ? S 0:00 \_ imap-login
12399 ? S 0:00 \_ imap-login
12403 ? S 0:00 \_ imap-login
12474 ? S 0:00 \_ pop3-login
12481 ? S 0:00 \_ pop3-login
12495 ? S 0:00 \_ pop3-login


This is what I expect to see when I start dovecot service.

However, a month ago and today it started again, dovecot stops responding correctly and when I run : ps fax I get only the following:

11378 ? Ss 0:00 dovecot
11383 ? S 0:00 \_ dovecot-auth


No IMAP or POP3 login lines.

I ran:

netstat -lpn

and it pulls up
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:993 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 11378/dovecot
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:995 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 11378/dovecot
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 4911/mysqld
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:587 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 28628/exim
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:110 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 11378/dovecot
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:2222 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 20845/directadmin
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:143 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 11378/dovecot
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:783 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 28668/spamd -d -c -
tc

So the service does listen there on these ports.

I don't know what to do next and I could use some pointers.

Thanks,

-Alon.

 

[SupermanInNY]

Well.. this is a repeat case and I believe it is related to the system time.
How so?

Well.. I was synching the system time using a crontab -e by issueing:

rdate server >date -s

The server I was quering against had an issue of wrong time/date.

This became evidence when I had issues with timestamps across many servers who had various mail systems, and yes,. this is still nothing to do with devcot.

A month ago,. I had the same issue with devcot and if my memory is current, I believe there was an issue with the time/date as well.
This time I know there is an issue with the time/date as it happen accross many servers.

So, in conclusion:

If you have issues with Devcot, where you see it running, but not allowing to login (Imap and Pop are not responding), check the date/time of the server and verify that it didn't change by mistake or by wrong setting.

At least, that is my observation for now. If you notice or know something else, please let me know.

-Alon.