Simple little problem with postcat

[Haines Brown]

I'm trying to set up postfix to HOLD some message, and having trouble
reading them in the hold queue with postcat.

The message file is there: I can read it in its non-human readable
form. I try:

$ sudo postcat 26F0565E
postcat: fatal: open 26F0565E: no such file or directory

I tried supplying the full path; I tried using cat after giving the
world read permission; I checked that "0" was not a capital oh. Same
result.

The man postcat did not say whether postcat knows where to look in the
hold queue. I'm missing something that undoubtedly is obvious.

Haines Brown

[Wietse Venema]

Haines Brown:

POSTCAT(1) POSTCAT(1)

NAME
postcat - show Postfix queue file contents

SYNOPSIS
postcat [-vq] [-c config_dir] [files...]

DESCRIPTION
The postcat command prints the contents of the named files
in human-readable form.

It says: print contents of *named file*.

It does not say: contents of *named QUEUE file*

To print a queue file, you need a postcat version that
has the -q option:

-q Search the Postfix queue for the named files
instead of taking the names literally.

Wietse
Wietse

[Haines Brown]

Now that you point this difference out, I see it.

I find that my version of postcat does understand the -q option
(access queue). So I try:

$ sudo postcat -q 26F0565E

postcat: fatal: open 26F0565E: no such file or directory

I don't understand the difference between a "named file" and a
"literal" filename.

Haines Brown

[Wietse Venema]

Haines Brown:

> I find that my version of postcat does understand the -q option
> (access queue). So I try:
>
> $ sudo postcat -q 26F0565E
> postcat: fatal: open 26F0565E: no such file or directory

Postcat looks in maildrop, incoming, active, deferred, and hold.
It uses the same pathnames as the mailq command.

Wietse

[Haines Brown]

> Haines Brown:
> > I find that my version of postcat does understand the -q option
> > (access queue). So I try:
> >
> > $ sudo postcat -q 26F0565E
> > postcat: fatal: open 26F0565E: no such file or directory
>
> Postcat looks in maildrop, incoming, active, deferred, and hold.
> It uses the same pathnames as the mailq command.
>
> Wietse

Sorry to be so slow about this, but if postcat uses the same path as
mailq, and mailq nicely displays the contents of the hold queue, then
why is the postcat command above not seeing the message file?

Haines Brown

[Wietse Venema]

Haines Brown:

It does on my own machine, where I use postcat for inspection of
"mail on hold" that may contain viruses.

Try running postcat under strace or truss.

I can't fix a problem until is can reliably be reproduced elsewhere.

Wietse

[Haines Brown]

> > Try running postcat under strace or truss.
> >
> > I can't fix a problem until is can reliably be reproduced elsewhere.
>

I sent an strace to the list, but it was rejected by my ISP because it
held "too many suspicious characters. So I cut out sections that
seemed to hold these characters and sent it again to the list.

However, my second try at sending the strace of a postcat run to the
list seems to have fallen into a black hole. I didn't see it show up on the
list, but also I didn't receive a message that it was bounced for
suspicious characters. Would someone advise whether it got through?

Further, I don't know that sending such a long item to the entire list
is a good idea. It seems more appropriate to zip it up, mime it and
send it as an attachment personally rather than fill everyone's mail
box with it. Would that be preferable?

Haines Brown

[Tony Earnshaw]

s=F8n, 11.04.2004 kl. 16.53 skrev Haines Brown:
[...]

> Further, I don't know that sending such a long item to the entire list
> is a good idea. It seems more appropriate to zip it up, mime it and
> send it as an attachment personally rather than fill everyone's mail
> box with it. Would that be preferable?

If you zip it up, even though this list is OKed for my mailserver, my
(Postfix ;) mailserver will refuse your posting. No way I'm going to
change that: envelope senders can be forged too easily - witness all the
jpg.exe, .txt.scr etc shit I'm refusing from the so-called Ximian list
at the moment.

--Tonni

--=20
Kattekots op de vloer
na de moe=EB thuiskomst
weinig walg
getrouw als kind
de kat heet welkom.

mail: billy - at - billy.demon.nl
http://www.billy.demon.nl

[Shaun T. Erickson]

Haines Brown wrote:

>>>Try running postcat under strace or truss.
>>>
>>>I can't fix a problem until is can reliably be reproduced elsewhere.
>>
> I sent an strace to the list, but it was rejected

If you can, put it up on a website and post the URL here instead. Then
all your transmission issues go away, and anyone who wants to look it
it, can.

-ste

[Haines Brown]

> >
> > Try running postcat under strace or truss.
> >
> > I can't fix a problem until is can reliably be reproduced elsewhere.
>

> I got an strace, but my ISP's mail server rejected it because of too
> many suspiction characters (not the first I've been called a
> "suspicious character".

OK, I've uploaded the strace of postcat to

http://hartford-hwp.com/sandbox/strace

Thanks for glancing at it.

Haines Brown

[Haines Brown]

The postcat -q command has started working ;-)

When I tried to send the strace of the result of forwarding a bad
message to myself, the first thing that happened was that it broke my
ISP's mail server (neither I nor they could any longer access my
account). After a few hours, that problem was fixed and I had them
delete the offending message in queue. After working on the backload
of mail, I went back to work on postfix, reloaded it, and now find
that postcat -q works.

Sorry for waste of time.

Haines