{"id":20719,"date":"2020-11-30T05:29:12","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T21:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.mwwsb.com.my\/pjci\/?post_type=kb&p=20719"},"modified":"2022-09-07T20:03:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T12:03:41","slug":"postfix-queue-management","status":"publish","type":"kb","link":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/kb\/postfix-queue-management","title":{"rendered":"Postfix Queue Management"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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To find which mails are stuck in mail queue and why?<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Postfix Queue Management. If emails are getting delay, it’s better to inspect postfix mail queues, coupled with postfix mail log.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Status\/Shape of Mail Queue<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Postfix maintains different queues for different purpose.active<\/code>\u00a0 and \u00a0deferred<\/code>\u00a0queues are of our interest.<\/p>

Ideally, we should never have a mail in deferred queue.<\/p>

qshape<\/code>\u00a0command will show shape of active mail queue by default. Ideally it should be as close as to empty since postfix sends email instantly!<\/p>

qshape<\/code><\/pre>
Sample Outputs:<\/strong><\/p>
       T  5 10 20 40 80 160 320 640 1280 1280+\nTOTAL  0  0  0  0  0  0   0   0   0    0     0<\/code><\/pre>
If a mail is deferred, it will be moved to deferred\u00a0queue.<\/p>
Running following command will show you the number of deferred emails for each domains\u2026<\/p>
qshape deferred<\/code><\/pre>
Sample Output:<\/strong><\/p>
               T  5 10 20 40 80 160 320 640 1280 1280+\n        TOTAL  5  0  0  0  0  0   0   0   0    0     5\n    gmail.com  4  0  0  0  0  0   0   0   0    0     4\n    yahoo.com  1  0  0  0  0  0   0   0   0    0     1<\/code><\/pre>
If you see mails to one or more domain only being deferred, check if you can connect to those servers from your network.<\/p>
Analyze mails in queue<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Dump entire mail queue<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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You can use either\u00a0mailq<\/code>\u00a0or\u00a0postqueue -p<\/code>command. They will show an output like below:<\/p>
-Queue ID- --Size-- ----Arrival Time---- -Sender\/Recipient-------\n2FC8824D24<\/strong>    10588 Thu Sep 27 14:52:41  from.me@example.com\n(connect to alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[74.125.79.26]:25: Connection timed out)\n                                         some.user@gmail.com\n-- 16 Kbytes in 2 Requests.<\/code><\/pre>
You get a dump for all emails from all mail queues including active & deferred queues.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Read an email from mail queue<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Every message in the queue has a unique id. You can read the message in a queue using a command like:<\/p>
postcat -q \u00a0DA80E24A0A<\/code><\/pre>
Or<\/p>
postcat -qv \u00a0DA80E24A0A<\/code><\/pre>
It will display your emails with headers and some more info. Using \u2018v\u2019 will display extra information.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Attempt to send an email from mail queue<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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It’s better to first open the postfix log using something like below:<\/p>
tail -f \/var\/log\/mail.{err,log}<\/code><\/pre>
Then you can identify a stuck mail and attempt to send it by using:<\/p>
postqueue -i DA80E24A0A<\/code><\/pre>
If that mail gets stuck again, check the log tab to find the reason.<\/p>
Once you fix the issue, you can attempt to send that mail again. Mail ID inside queue remains same even if mail gets deferred again and again.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Attempt to send all email from mail queue<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Once you rectify the issue and confident about a delivery, you may try flushing the entire queue immediately using:<\/p>
postqueue -f<\/code><\/pre>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Deleting Pending mails from queue<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In that case, you can simply delete all queued mails using:<\/p>
postsuper -d ALL deferred<\/code><\/pre>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Delete a single mail from the queue<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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If you want to just delete one mail, you can try:<\/p>
postsuper -d DA80E24A0A<\/code><\/pre>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Delete mails to a specific mail address<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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You need to some work here as postfix has no direct command for this.<\/p>
The following sample is taken from postsuper man page:<\/p>
mailq | tail -n +2 | grep -v '^ *(' | awk  'BEGIN { RS = \"\" } { if ($8 == \"USER@EXAMPLE.COM\" && $9 == \"\") print $1 } ' | tr -d '*!' | postsuper -d -<\/code><\/pre>
Just replace USER@EXAMPLE.COM with the receiver’s email address.<\/p>
$8<\/code>\u00a0will contain\u00a0recipient1 email-address,\u00a0$9<\/code>\u00a0will contain\u00a0recipient2 email-address.<\/p>
If you want to filter from-email address, use\u00a0$7<\/code>\u00a0variable.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Click to read the next recommended article: 7 Useful Linux Commands<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To find which mails are stuck in mail queue and why? Postfix Queue Management. If emails are getting delay, it’s better to inspect postfix mail queues, coupled with postfix mail log. Status\/Shape of Mail Queue Postfix maintains different queues for different purpose.active\u00a0 and \u00a0deferred\u00a0queues are of our interest. Ideally, we should never have a mail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"kbtopic":[109],"kbtag":[106,105],"mkb_version":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb\/20719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/kb"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20719"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb\/20719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31718,"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb\/20719\/revisions\/31718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kbtopic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kbtopic?post=20719"},{"taxonomy":"kbtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kbtag?post=20719"},{"taxonomy":"mkb_version","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casbay.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mkb_version?post=20719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}