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Re: Archiving all Postfix mail

Victor.Duchovnimorganstanley.com
Date: Sun Feb 01 2004 - 23:09:24 CST


On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, Wietse Venema wrote:

> #DEFINE dont_remove
> The dont_remove parameter is a debugging aid. When enabled, Postfix
> does not delete queue files but rather saves them in the "saved"
> mail queue.
>
> This feature can also be used to archive all mail. To recover
> the envelope information and content, use the postcat(1) command.
>
> I added this feature to Postfix as a safety net before I started
> using it myself after four months into the project. This feature
> never was removed, and may actually be useful for some people.
>

One more observation, the "REMOVE" interface is also used by "cleanup"
when deleting queue files for rejected messages and by "pickup" when
deleting "maildrop" files. If the facility is to be used for archiving, it
should only archive messages that entered the incoming queue.

Otherwise one ends up archiving the incomplete queue files of messages
rejected by header/body checks and double-archiving locally submitted
mail. One can perhaps use mode bits and file ownership to distinguish most
of the extra cases from "real" messages, but it is not clear that this is
the desired semantics if "dont_remove" is to be interpreted as "don't
remove delivered messages" as opposed to "never remove any queue files".

--
        Viktor.