I agree with you that it's a bug in your C library's implementation of getpwnam(), specifically in its NIS (a.k.a. Yellow Pages) routines (note the yp_??? function calls).
The idea of those calls is to enable the #public and #shared namespaces if the users imappublic and imapshared respectively exist. Some UNIX systems don't like 10-character userids, but they shouldn't react by consuming 1GB of RAM! If you don't want to use the #public and #shared namespaces, the easiest way to defang this snake is to edit file imap-????/src/osdep/unix/env_unix.c (yup, the file that everybody hacks... by design) and look for a line which reads: static short noautomaticsharedns = NIL; Change that line to be: static short noautomaticsharedns = T; Then rebuild. The real fix is to get your C library fixed. I hope that the only reason that the Mandrake people told you to ask here was to get a workaround in ipop3d/imapd from us, pending their being able to fix the C library and get that fix out to you. For future software support issues with UW imapd, you should send your mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] instead of [EMAIL PROTECTED] ipop3d and imapd are based upon the UW c-client API, and the c-client list is specifically for software issues with that software. The imap list is oriented towards the protocol. Another place to seek out help is the comp.mail.imap newsgroup. Thanks. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum.