From: Wietse Venema (wietseporcupine.org)
Date: Thu May 01 2003 - 12:29:12 CDT

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David Alexander:
> >The fork() call is executed while the process runs with "postfix"
> >privileges. Perhaps there is some system-imposed per-user process
> >limit that it runs into.
>
> Under AIX, there is a limit of processes that may be run by a
> user - though I don't believe that this is configurable on a per-user
> basis.
>
> On this system, that limit had been set at 150... and it appears
> to affect root as well.

Truth to be said, the fork() call runs with effective privileges
of postfix, and with real privileges of root. So, it may be that
AIX counts this call towards root's process quota rather than the
quota of the unprivileged postfix userid.

> So, curiously, it appears that the local delivery process was
>subject to root's process limit. Since the process should be running
>with "postfix" privleges, why would this be? Have we identified
>an AIX-ism (trust me, there are tons of them) that causes at least
>an inital fork to occur as root, regardless of the user requesting
>said fork?

The only AIXism seems to be that the per-user process limit is
lower than on other systems.

        Wietse

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