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Managing The Postfix Queue

In this article, I will go over the tools Postfix offers you to manage the mail queue. There are 6 actions you can perform on messages in the queue.

  • List messages.
  • Delete messages.
  • Hold messages.
  • Re-queue messages.
  • Display the contents of messages.
  • Flush the messages in the queue.

Listing Messages in the Postfix Queue

Postfix provides a tool called postqueue. The command provided with the -p switch will display an entry for each message in the queue. The output will include a column for the message ID, size, arrival time, send, and recipient addresses.

Messages that are currently in the active queue will display a asterisk to the right of the message ID.

If there is a message in the hold queue, it will display a exclamation point to the right of the message ID.

If a message is deferred, there will not be symbol / mark to the right of the message ID.

postqueue -p

-Queue ID- --Size-- ----Arrival Time---- -Sender/Recipient-------  
5866DAC07F3 362 Sat Oct 12 15:53:56 trankin@tullyr.com  
(connect to mail.tullyr.com[208.70.75.100]:25: Connection refused)  
<trankin@tullyr.com>

Deleting Messages in the Postfix Queue

To delete messages from the Postfix queue, you can use the postsuper command. The postsuper tool can be used to delete a single message, or all messages in the queue.

To delete a single message from the queue, provide the -d switch followed by the message ID.

postsuper -d 5866DAC07F3

When you want to delete all messages in the queue, you provide postsuper with the word ALL in all capitals instead of the message ID.

postsuper -d ALL

NOTE – Be careful when using the postsuper command with the -d ALL switch. This command will delete all messages in the queue immediately without prompting you for verification.

Holding Messages in the Postfix Queue

The Postfix hold queue provides a place for messages to be held indefinitely. If you move a message into the hold queue, it will not be delivered until you specifically remove it or move it back into the normal queue processing.

To place a message in the hold queue, you use the tool postsuper with the -h switch followed by message ID.

postsuper -h 5866DAC07F3

When you need to move a messae back into the normal queue for processing, you use the postsuper command with the -H switch followed by the message ID.

postsuper -H 5866DAC07F3

Re-queue Messages in the Postfix Queue

If you have messages that are incorrect based on a misconfigured Postfix installation, you may need to re-queue the messages via the postsuper command. Some example of bad messages could be problems such as incorrect transport type, incorrect rewriting of an address, or an incorrect next hop.

After fixing the Postfix configuration, you can re-queue a single message or all messages. To requeue a message, you will use the postsuper command with the -r switch. When this command is run, it will update the incorrect information based on the new configuration.

To re-queue a single message you pass the message ID as in the example below.

postsuper -r 5866DAC07F3

If you need to re-queue all messages, you can pass the capital word ALL.

postsuper -r ALL

Displaying the Contents of Messages in the Postfix Queue

If you need to view the contents of a message in the queue, Postfix provides the postcat tool for this. The postcat tool will display the contents of a file when provided with the -q switch followed by the message ID.

postcat -q 5866DAC07F3

Flushing Messages in the Postfix Queue

If you have messages in the queue that you would like to flush, you can use the postqueue command with the -f switch. Flushing the queue will cause Postfix to attempt to deliver all messages in the queue immediately.

postqueue -f

There are times when this is needed. However, it’s usually not a good idea to flush all of the messages in the queue. If you do this a lot, it can have an impact on the performance on your mail server. You should leave the queue management to the Postfix queue manager.

With Postfix, it’s possible to flush only those messages that are going to a specific domain. You can do this with the -s switch provided by postqueue. However, to do this the domain must be eligible for fast flush.

For a domain to be eligible for fast flush, it must be listed in the fast_flush_domains parameter. In Postfix, the default value for the fast_flush_domains includes all of the hosts that are listed in relay_domains.

To add the site to the fast_flush_domains you can append it to the line fast_flush_domains as shown below:

fast_flush_domains = $relay_domains tullyrankin.com

Now if you want to flush mail that is destined for the domain you added to the fast_flush_domains, you can use the postqueue command with the -s option as shown below:

postqueue -s tullyrankin.com
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Upload your images at scale

For the best performance, you should always upload your images at scale if possible. For example, if you have an image that you want to display at 200 px wide, don’t upload an image that is 400 px wide and then scale it with HTML. A better way to accomplish this is to use the srcset attribute in the <img> tag which allows you to define possible resolutions that the browser can choose from. Here an example:

<img srcset="/img/keycdn-300.jpg 300w,
             /img/keycdn-600.jpg 600w,
             /img/keycdn-1200.jpg 1200w"
     src="/img/keycdn-600.jpg" alt="KeyCDN">

Most modern web browsers support srcset, except IE and opera mini.

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Regular Expression

wiki page

Regular expression is a sequence of character(s) mainly used to find and replace patterns in a string or file.
So we can say that the task of searching and extracting is so common that Python has a very powerful library called regular expressions that handles many of these tasks quite elegantly.

SYMBOL USAGE
$ Matches the end of the line
\s Matches whitespace
\S Matches any non-whitespace character
* Repeats a character zero or more times
\S Matches any non-whitespace character
*? Repeats a character zero or more times (non-greedy)
+ Repeats a character one or more times
+? Repeats a character one or more times (non-greedy)
[aeiou] Matches a single character in the listed set
[^XYZ] Matches a single character not in the listed set
[a-z0-9] The set of characters can include a range
( Indicates where string extraction is to start
) Indicates where string extraction is to end

website to check regular expression

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How email works (MTA, MDA, MUA)

As simple as it is to use, email relies on a more complicated set of operating procedures than that of the Web. For most users, its operation is transparent, which means that it is not necessary to understand how email works in order to be able to use it.

However, the short introduction below has been provided to help you to understand its basic principles, give you an idea of how to best configure your email clients, and inform you about the underlying mechanisms of spam.

How Email Works

Email is based around the use of electronic mailboxes. When an email is sent, the message is routed from server to server, all the way to the recipient’s email server. More specifically, the message is sent to the mail server tasked with transporting emails (called the MTA, for Mail Transport Agent) to the recipient’s MTA. On the Internet, MTAs communicate with one another using the protocol SMTP, and so are logically called SMTP servers (or sometimes outgoing mail servers).

The recipient’s MTA then delivers the email to the incoming mail server (called the MDA, for Mail Delivery Agent), which stores the email as it waits for the user to accept it. There are two main protocols used for retrieving email on an MDA: POP3 (Post Office Protocol), the older of the two, which is used for retrieving email and, in certain cases, leaving a copy of it on the server; and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), which is used for coordinating the status of emails (read, deleted, moved) across multiple email clients. With IMAP, a copy of every message is saved on the server, so that this synchronization task can be completed.

For this reason, incoming mail servers are called POP servers or IMAP servers, depending on which protocol is used:

Schematic diagram of MTA-MDA-MUA
To use a real-world analogy, MTAs act as the post office (the sorting area and mail carrier), which handle message transportation, while MDAs act as mailboxes, which store messages (as much as their volume will allow) until the recipients check the box. This means that it is not necessary for recipients to be connected in order for them to be sent email.

To keep everyone from checking other users’ emails, MDA is protected by a user name called a login and by a password.

Retrieving mail is done using a software program called an MUA (Mail User Agent). When the MUA is a program installed on the user’s system, it is called an email client (such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook, Eudora Mail, Incredimail or Lotus Notes).

When it is a web interface used for interacting with the incoming mail server, it is called webmail.

Open Relay

By default, it is not necessary to authenticate oneself to send email, which means that it is very easy to falsify one’s own address when sending mail. For this reason, nearly all Internet service providers lock down their SMTP servers so that only their subscribers can use them, or more precisely, only machines whose IP address belongs to the ISP’s domain. This explains why users must modify the outgoing server settings in their email clients each time they move to a new home or business.

When an organization’s email server is improperly configured and allows third-party users on any network to send emails, this is called an open relay. Open relays are generally used by spammers, as using them hides the true origins of their messages. As a result, many ISPs keep an up-to-date blacklist of open relays to keep subscribers from receiving messages from such servers.