On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 7:34 AM, Frank Bax <fr...@bax.on.ca> wrote: > I see this message in /var/log/daemon about every 10 minutes or so > (starting about an hour ago); what does this mean? > > Dec 27 10:30:01 bax inetd[28318]: pop3/tcp server failing (looping), service > terminated
It means the host is receiving more POP3 connections per minute than the limit set by the inetd.conf, which defaults to 255. Now, if those are legitimate connections because this is a host serving a large community of pop3 users, then you should consider raising the limit, probably by changing the max for pop3 in the inetd.conf. Contrawise, if this host shouldn't be seeing so many pop3 connections, then that host may be under a dictionary attack. Check the logs for your pop3 server to see what it's saying. Philip Guenther
