Postfix Bounce question

[Chris Hodgetts]

Hello,

My current home internet is in a bit of a shabby state :(
I have my mail server sitting at a Datacenter and it collects mail, and
pushes it over a VPN tunnel to the home mail server for final delivery.

However, due to only having connectivity via a t-stick at the moment, I
only collect mail once or twice a day.
But postfix on the datacenter server pushes out a :

####################################################################

# THIS IS A WARNING ONLY. YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE. #
####################################################################

Your message could not be delivered for more than 4 hour(s).
It will be retried until it is 5 day(s) old.

For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.


to every recipient, because I don't have the vpn tunnel up all the time.

----

How can I increase that timeout to say 48 or so hours, that way they never know I had to queue their message?

I have looked at the following: maximal_queue_lifetime but that I guess is the (5days) old thing.

Any info would be fantastic! :)
_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Hadley Rich]

Post by Chris Hodgetts
How can I increase that timeout to say 48 or so hours, that way they never know I had to queue their message?
I have looked at the following: maximal_queue_lifetime but that I guess is the (5days) old thing.
Any info would be fantastic! :)

The delay_warning_time controls that parameter;

http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html#delay_warning_time

hads

[Cliff Pratt]

Post by Chris Hodgetts
Hello,
My current home internet is in a bit of a shabby state :(
I have my mail server sitting at a Datacenter and it collects mail, and
pushes it over a VPN tunnel to the home mail server for final delivery.
However, due to only having connectivity via a t-stick at the moment, I
only collect mail once or twice a day.
####################################################################
# THIS IS A WARNING ONLY. YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE. #
####################################################################
Your message could not be delivered for more than 4 hour(s).
It will be retried until it is 5 day(s) old.
For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.
to every recipient, because I don't have the vpn tunnel up all the time.

Why not just pull down your messages with fetchmail rather than set up a
VPN?

Cheers,

Cliff

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Daniel Pittman]

Post by Cliff Pratt

Post by Chris Hodgetts
My current home internet is in a bit of a shabby state :(
I have my mail server sitting at a Datacenter and it collects mail, and
pushes it over a VPN tunnel to the home mail server for final delivery.
However, due to only having connectivity via a t-stick at the moment, I
only collect mail once or twice a day.

[...]

Post by Cliff Pratt

Post by Chris Hodgetts
Your message could not be delivered for more than 4 hour(s).
It will be retried until it is 5 day(s) old.

[...]

Post by Cliff Pratt
Why not just pull down your messages with fetchmail rather than set up a
VPN?

I can't speak for the OP, but I would probably reach for UUCP before
fetchmail - since it involves less actual delivery of email and better
supports the intermittently connected node. (I used UUCP over SSH
when I last had this running.)

However, both fetchmail and UUCP introduce traces into the headers of
the message that are at the very least uncommon these days, and which
have been known to confuse a variety of anti-spam solutions, so you
should watch out for that if you do deploy them.

Regards,
Daniel

[Steve Holdoway]

Post by Daniel Pittman

Post by Cliff Pratt

Post by Chris Hodgetts
My current home internet is in a bit of a shabby state :(
I have my mail server sitting at a Datacenter and it collects mail, and
pushes it over a VPN tunnel to the home mail server for final delivery.
However, due to only having connectivity via a t-stick at the moment, I
only collect mail once or twice a day.

[...]

Post by Cliff Pratt

Post by Chris Hodgetts
Your message could not be delivered for more than 4 hour(s).
It will be retried until it is 5 day(s) old.

[...]

Post by Cliff Pratt
Why not just pull down your messages with fetchmail rather than set up a
VPN?

I can't speak for the OP, but I would probably reach for UUCP before
fetchmail - since it involves less actual delivery of email and better
supports the intermittently connected node. (I used UUCP over SSH
when I last had this running.)
However, both fetchmail and UUCP introduce traces into the headers of
the message that are at the very least uncommon these days, and which
have been known to confuse a variety of anti-spam solutions, so you
should watch out for that if you do deploy them.
Regards,
Daniel

Personally, I'd reach for dovecot and use IMAP ( IMAPS IMAP/TLS, or
even webmail ), intermittent access or no. Then these problems are then
your own, and not the rest of the worlds' (:

Just my 0.02,

Steve

[Mark Foster]

The problem is not the rest-of-the-world's as he's queuing the mail on his own mail server. He quite rightly asked for advice on how to not spam all his email-ers with 'deferral' notices.

Sure there's other ways to skin this particular cat, but there's nothing wrong with the way he's operating.

It's a little old-fashioned in some respects (people used to do this with ETRN back when remaining connected on their static-ip-dialup or ISDN-based-dialup cost heavily per minute) and is resultantly much less common now (with fixed-IP broadband being relatively affordable). But it works well enough if your circumstances dictate you need it.

Mark.


-----Original Message-----
From: nzlug-***@linux.net.nz [mailto:nzlug-***@linux.net.nz] On Behalf Of Steve Holdoway
Sent: Sunday, 12 December 2010 1:45 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nzlug] Postfix Bounce question

Personally, I'd reach for dovecot and use IMAP ( IMAPS IMAP/TLS, or even webmail ), intermittent access or no. Then these problems are then your own, and not the rest of the worlds' (:

Just my 0.02,

Steve

--
Steve Holdoway BSc(Hons) MNZCS <***@greengecko.co.nz> http://www.greengecko.co.nz
MSN: ***@greengecko.co.nz
Skype: sholdowa


_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Cliff Pratt]

Post by Mark Foster
The problem is not the rest-of-the-world's as he's queuing the mail
on his own mail server. He quite rightly asked for advice on how to
not spam all his email-ers with 'deferral' notices.
Sure there's other ways to skin this particular cat, but there's
nothing wrong with the way he's operating.

...except that he is spamming his emailers with deferral notices.

Should a mail server be on the end of an intermittent link anyway?

Cheers,

Cliff


_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Mark Foster]

Post by Cliff Pratt

Post by Mark Foster
The problem is not the rest-of-the-world's as he's queuing the mail
on his own mail server. He quite rightly asked for advice on how to
not spam all his email-ers with 'deferral' notices.
Sure there's other ways to skin this particular cat, but there's
nothing wrong with the way he's operating.

...except that he is spamming his emailers with deferral notices.

... which is why he's asking how to change that?

Post by Cliff Pratt
Should a mail server be on the end of an intermittent link anyway?

His world-facing MX is not.
What he does behind that, is his problem.

I'd have more of an issue if his world-facing MX was causing backscatter
by volume, which is what usually happens when a secondary MX picks up the
mail for a primary. All it can do is blindly accept mail per-domain and
queue it, and then generate bounces when it subsequently offloads to the
primary and discovers half the recipient addresses are invalid.

Assuming Chris's world-facing MX doesn't do this, I'd have no problem with
the model he's operating - but i'd probably not like to have a
deferral-notice timeout much shorter than 24 hours in that circumstance.

Mark.

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Cliff Pratt]

Post by Mark Foster

Post by Cliff Pratt

Post by Mark Foster
The problem is not the rest-of-the-world's as he's queuing the mail
on his own mail server. He quite rightly asked for advice on how to
not spam all his email-ers with 'deferral' notices.
Sure there's other ways to skin this particular cat, but there's
nothing wrong with the way he's operating.

...except that he is spamming his emailers with deferral notices.

... which is why he's asking how to change that?

Post by Cliff Pratt
Should a mail server be on the end of an intermittent link anyway?

His world-facing MX is not.
What he does behind that, is his problem.

I don't agree. His home mailserver is supposed to allow the world-facing
one to relay to it. If it isn't there it's a world-facing problem, not
just a problem behind the gateway server.

But, whatever, he has solved his problem.

Cheers,

Cliff

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Steve Holdoway]

Sorry, next time I'll better read the original post.

Post by Mark Foster
The problem is not the rest-of-the-world's as he's queuing the mail on his own mail server. He quite rightly asked for advice on how to not spam all his email-ers with 'deferral' notices.
Sure there's other ways to skin this particular cat, but there's nothing wrong with the way he's operating.
It's a little old-fashioned in some respects (people used to do this with ETRN back when remaining connected on their static-ip-dialup or ISDN-based-dialup cost heavily per minute) and is resultantly much less common now (with fixed-IP broadband being relatively affordable). But it works well enough if your circumstances dictate you need it.
Mark.
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Sunday, 12 December 2010 1:45 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nzlug] Postfix Bounce question
Just my 0.02,
Steve
--
Skype: sholdowa
_______________________________________________
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Chris Hodgetts]

We have just purchased a house, and as a result have no internet
connection.. apart from a t-stick.

Normally this is not a problem, and it 'just works' and there is very
little issue.
Plus having the data center connection do the anti-spam and everything
else is preferable - and just have the 'real email'
come for final delivery to the home server is what I wanted....

This is only just until I get a connection at home..

No the world-facing MX is on a fairly decent connection..
The only thing I am a little dubious about is it the Sparc Netra X10
it's running on, but that seems to have been up for over
150days....

To be honest, I don't mind the back scatter on the 4 hour delay notice,
I normally get a phone call from the person to say..
Hey get it fixed :) -- but just thats going to happen for how ever many
weeks before I get a connection over the 'festive' season, just thought
it was nicer to up that time.

Thanks Hadley for the advice on that one..

Post by Steve Holdoway
Sorry, next time I'll better read the original post.

Post by Mark Foster
The problem is not the rest-of-the-world's as he's queuing the mail on his own mail server. He quite rightly asked for advice on how to not spam all his email-ers with 'deferral' notices.
Sure there's other ways to skin this particular cat, but there's nothing wrong with the way he's operating.
It's a little old-fashioned in some respects (people used to do this with ETRN back when remaining connected on their static-ip-dialup or ISDN-based-dialup cost heavily per minute) and is resultantly much less common now (with fixed-IP broadband being relatively affordable). But it works well enough if your circumstances dictate you need it.
Mark.
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Sunday, 12 December 2010 1:45 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nzlug] Postfix Bounce question
Just my 0.02,
Steve
--
Skype: sholdowa
_______________________________________________
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

_______________________________________________
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Chris Hodgetts]

Oh and it's only a notice / warning -- and I cant work out why Postifx
actually sends them.
The amount of people that assume it's fatal and let me know is
astonishing..

Clearly people don't read the bounce messages -- they just assume it
failed.

Oh well.. it all just works, and I have implemented that config option
now, so there should be no more problems :)

Post by Steve Holdoway
Sorry, next time I'll better read the original post.

Post by Mark Foster
The problem is not the rest-of-the-world's as he's queuing the mail on his own mail server. He quite rightly asked for advice on how to not spam all his email-ers with 'deferral' notices.
Sure there's other ways to skin this particular cat, but there's nothing wrong with the way he's operating.
It's a little old-fashioned in some respects (people used to do this with ETRN back when remaining connected on their static-ip-dialup or ISDN-based-dialup cost heavily per minute) and is resultantly much less common now (with fixed-IP broadband being relatively affordable). But it works well enough if your circumstances dictate you need it.
Mark.
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Sunday, 12 December 2010 1:45 p.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nzlug] Postfix Bounce question
Just my 0.02,
Steve
--
Skype: sholdowa
_______________________________________________
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

_______________________________________________
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug