4.26- beta upgrade (was RE: Another MailScanner User!)

[Drew Marshall]

Julian

I'm not a programmer, as you may remember ;-), but English I can manage :-)

I'll have a look tonight and send it over.

Drew
--
Julian Field said:
> Any chance you could please take a copy of the current Postfix docs off
> the
> MailScanner site, update them to use the "hold queue" approach, and mail
> the resulting docs back to me so I can put them up on the web site (at
> least as an alternative, quite possibly as a replacement).
>
> This all sounds very good to me. I partially did it the way I did so that
> the setup was the same split-MTA as sendmail, but if this route is more
> reliable then I think people should be using it.
>
> At 11:51 20/01/2004, you wrote:
>>As I understand Postfix doesn't use much in the way of file locking. It
>>doesn't need to. In standard form a message is dropped into the onward
>>directory and the next process is called using a 1b message and so mail
>>makes it's way through the MTA. MailScanner upsets it by trying to grab
>>the file from the deferred directory for processing. Now the deferred
>>directory is used by Postfix as the place where mail is put when delivery
>>fails, pending re-try (Keeps the active queues down) and every so often
>>(As set in master.cf) the queue runner process goes to the deffered queue
>>and inspects the messages for any that are due for retry. If the time
>>stamp has expired it picks up the message and trys to deliver it. Through
>>all of this there is not a need for much in the way of locking as what is
>>going to touch that file? Postfix (As far as Postfix is concerned!) and
>>Postfix knows what it's doing (We hope :-) ) If MailScanner and Postfix
>>queue runner should happen to try to take the same message, you get the
>>'still being delivered' message in the logs and up pops a duplicated
>> mail!
>>
>>Easy way round it, use the hold queue. This is designed to only have
>>messages dropped in it for leter inspection by the postmaster and so the
>>queue runner doesn't ever re-inspect this directory. Ideal for
>>MailScanner, message gets dropped (MS knows how to tell when it's
>>complete), picks up the new message, does it's bit and puts it back in
>> the
>>incoming queue for Postfix to deal with in it's usual efficient manner.
>>
>>I haven't had a single duplicate since putting this in place.
>>
>>Drew
>>
>>Neil Robst said:
>> > And you think this resolves the duplicate mail problem?
>> >
>> > I'm unsure how it differs (apart from only having one postfix daemon
>> > running) from using /var/spool/postfix.in/deferred and
>> > /var/spool/postfix/incoming...?
>> >
>> > However, as I've just had a report from my users saying that upgrading
>> > to the 4.26-4 beta hasn't worked, I'm willing to try anything :-)
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 10:20, Drew Marshall wrote:
>> >> Neil
>> >>
>> >> What I have done is below, as suggested by Peter Bates and forwarded
>> to
>> >> me
>> >> from this list.
>> >>
>> >> > I'm using MS with Postfix in a slightly 'non-standard' way, but
>> which
>> >> is
>> >> working fine for 13-15K messages we deal with (actually it might be
>> >> more, I never bothered counting our outgoing email!)...
>> >> > I'm using a 'header_check' like so:
>> >> > In main.cf -
>> >> > header_checks = pcre:/etc/postfix/header_checks
>> >> > In header_checks -
>> >> > /^Received:.*by .*\.your.domain.tld \(Postfix\)/ HOLD
>> >> > This puts the incoming mail in the 'hold' queue, and then
>> >> > I have in MailScanner.conf -
>> >> > Incoming Queue Dir = /var/spool/postfix/hold
>> >> > Outgoing Queue Dir = /var/spool/postfix/incoming
>> >>
>> >> With this, you will need to stop postfix.in and uncomment the smtp
>> line
>> >> in
>> >> master.cf (Basically revert your set up to a non-MailScanner set up
>> (It
>> >> may be easier if Postfix.in runs chrooted and postfix doesn't to just
>> >> alter postfix.in to become just postfix, what ever your mileage!)).
>> Stop
>> >> all instances and restart just postfix and you now have one postfix
>> >> instance with MailScanner.
>> >>
>> >> Works great!
>> >>
>> >> Drew
>> >> --
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Neil Robst said:
>> >> > Drew,
>> >> >
>> >> > Can you explain a bit more about how you've configured postfix,
>> >> please?
>> >> I'm using the suggested setup of two postfix instances - the first
>> runs
>> >> everything in a chroot jail and smtp, local and virtual and deferred.
>> >> Mailscanner then picks everything out the deferred queue, does it's
>> >> stuff and drops it back into the incoming queue of the second postfix
>> >> instance. Seems to be working well, but you said you'd changed
>> postfix
>> >> to bypass the duplicate problems...
>> >> >
>> >> > Regards,
>> >> > Neil
>> >> >
>> >> > On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 09:06, Drew Marshall wrote:
>> >> >> I've been running it now since the weekend without problem. I
>> would
>> >> suggest that although marked as a beta and potentialy unstable, it's
>> >> about
>> >> >> as unstable as the production releases :-) The new patches seem to
>> be
>> >> working well.
>> >> >> I have to admit, I changed my Postfix set up to by pass the
>> duplicate
>> >> problems and haven't changed it back. I now use a rule in Postfix to
>> >> hold
>> >> >> all incoming mail, let MS collect from the hold queue (The queue
>> >> runner
>> >> doesn't ever run in there) and drop back into the incoming queue for
>> >> delivery. It just means that I only have to ever run just one Postfix
>> >> instance. I only ever use SMTP connection so don't have to worry
>> about
>> >> direct queue injection by passing MailScanner.
>> >> >> Drew
>> >> >> Neil Robst said:
>> >> >> > Yes... fingers crossed!
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > Any other issues known with the 4.26-4 beta currently? What's
>> the
>> >> general feeling in the community of it's stability, etc?
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 22:07, Drew Marshall wrote:
>> >> >> >> Just for my 2p, my server doesn't have a high load but I
>> suffered
>> >> duplicate mail. My old set up on Slackware didn't suffer, the new on
>> >> Gentoo did :-(  . I'm not quite sure why but it seemed that the
>> >> >> Postfix
>> >> >> >> queue runner and MailScanner got in each others way with the
>> >> result
>> >> >> that
>> >> >> >> MS picked up incomplete messages.
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> <fingers crossed> Any way that's all in the past now </fingers
>> >> >> crossed>
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> Drew
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> Neil Robst wrote:
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> >Hi all,
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> >Just applied the 4.26-4 beta of MailScanner to my mail server,
>> >> >> though
>> >> >> >> I've
>> >> >> >> >been unable to replicate the problem with the duplicate mails
>> >> either
>> >> >> >> before
>> >> >> >> >or after (as expected) the upgrade. Do you know any details
>> about
>> >> that -whether it only manifested itself when there were lots of
>> >> >> >> recepients
>> >> >> >> >on the message or a high load on the server or what?
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> >Regards,
>> >> >> >> >Neil
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> >--
>> >> >> >> >This message has been scanned for viruses and
>> >> >> >> >dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
>> >> >> >> >believed to be clean.
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> --
>> >> >> >> In line with our policy, this message has
>> >> >> >> been scanned for viruses and dangerous
>> >> >> >> content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
>> >> >> >> www.themarshalls.co.uk/policy
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> --
>> >> >> In line with our policy, this message has
>> >> >> been scanned for viruses and dangerous
>> >> >> content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
>> >> >> www.themarshalls.co.uk/policy
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> In line with our policy, this message has
>> >> been scanned for viruses and dangerous
>> >> content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
>> >> www.themarshalls.co.uk/policy
>> >
>>
>>
>>--
>>In line with our policy, this message has
>>been scanned for viruses and dangerous
>>content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
>>www.themarshalls.co.uk/policy
>
> --
> Julian Field
> www.MailScanner.info
> MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
>
> PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654
>


--
In line with our policy, this message has
been scanned for viruses and dangerous
content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
www.themarshalls.co.uk/policy