New user, no Maildir, RC hangs at login and apache eating my CPU cycles

[Zippy1970]

I often add new (mail) users to my webserver. New users don't have a Maildir yet, it is created by postfix the first time they either receive or send email. And this of course, can take a while.

But when they try to login to RC while Maildir hasn't been created yet, the browser hangs and I see an apache instance on my server eating up 100% of my CPU cycles. Each login retry will create a new instance of apache. This can easily be exploited and bring a server to its knees.

Is there a solution for this? Is this a bug? Will this be solved?

[JohnDoh]

I'm not sure if this is a RC problem or an IMAP server problem. When happens if you login to one of these accounts that dont have a Maildir from a different client? A simple solution is to send the new user a test email when you setup the account .

[Zippy1970]

I just checked with a few different (web) mail client and those didn't give me any problems. Trying to login to an account which doesn't have a Maildir yet simply gave me a "login incorrect" error - without the hanging apache instance.

So it's definitely a RC problem and a serious one at that since it can bring a server to its knees.

[dano]

So why don't you just send them a welcome email so it all gets created?

[NEComputer]

I know from experience with apache that if the apache web server process is using 100% essential apache has crashed. This often occurs when apache is forced to find a directory that doesn't exist. When this has occurred to me apache processes usually just stop and an error log is written. So if the process is hanging there might be a problem with your apache config. This also occurs when a directory path is placed in the apache config file but doesn't exist. In this case apache shouldn't even start up if it can't find the directory or will crash if the directory is called.

I don't feel this necessarily is a RC problem. I am not sure but this sort of thing has happened when I have made adjustments to RC that are incorrect. RC doesn't know what to do so it kind of sits and waits causing the browser to lock up. This maybe something that can be worked on by developing better error handling but I don't see it as a problem.

Hope that helps!

-Pat