Process Titles

When verbose_proctitle = yes, Dovecot adds various extra information to its process titles. Besides the various self-descriptive command states, there are the following:

Generic

[initializing]

Added: 2.4.0

The process is still starting up and isn't yet ready to accept connections. This can especially happen if the process is still attempting to connect to the stats socket.

[idling]

The process is not doing anything except waiting for a client to be served.

[blocking on log write]

The log process is busy and not reading this process's logs. Try to debug (strace) the log process to see why.

Log Process

[service too fast: FD/LISTEN_FD/LOG_PREFIX]

One specific service is sending logs faster than we can write them. The LOG_PREFIX is usually enough to identify the service. If not, the FD and LISTEN_FD can in theory be used to calculate which service it is.

[N services too fast, last: FD/LISTEN_FD/LOG_PREFIX]

Multiple services are sending logs faster than we can write them. The last service's information is shown.

[N services too fast]

Multiple services are sending logs faster than we can write them, but there is no additional information about which ones specifically.

Mail Processes

Added: 2.4.0

This means imap, pop3, submission and managesieve processes.

[waiting on client]

Login process connected to the mail process, but it hasn't finished sending the request.

[auth lookup]

Mail process is waiting on auth process to finish userdb lookups.

[post-login script]

Mail process is waiting on post-login scripts to finish.

IMAP Process

Added: 2.4.0

[waiting on unhibernate client]

imap-hibernate process connected to the imap process, but it hasn't finished sending the request.

[unhibernating]

The imap connection is still being unhibernated.