postfix can't connect to MySQL

I got this error in syslog when postfix was trying to connect to MySQL:

Apr 13 17:34:53 webmail postfix/smtpd[6726]: warning: connect to mysql server localhost: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)
Apr 13 17:34:53 webmail postfix/smtpd[6726]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from rv-out-0506.google.com[209.85.198.233]: 451 4.3.0 : Temporary lookup failure; from= to= proto=ESMTP helo=

I got a reference to MySQL database in my main.cf which triggered the error:

local_recipient_maps = mysql:/etc/postfix/sql-recipients.cf

From the error it was obvious postfix couldn't connect to MySQL. Email from outside wouldn't be received properly by dbmail. I checked MySQL service and it was running and I could log into MySQL manually. I found a solution after googling a bit. The cause was in file /etc/postfix/master.cf. I got smtp service of postfix to run chroot'ed (see y below).

#service type private unpriv chroot wakeup maxproc command + args
smtp inet n - y - - smtpd

So I changed the line to:

#service type private unpriv chroot wakeup maxproc command + args
smtp inet n - n - - smtpd


Voila!. It worked. See log below:

Apr 13 18:03:02 webmail postfix/smtpd[7039]: connect from rv-out-0506.google.com[209.85.198.239]
Apr 13 18:03:03 webmail sqlgrey: grey: domain awl match: updating 209.85.198(209.85.198.239), gmail.com
Apr 13 18:03:03 webmail postfix/smtpd[7039]: B3246A3075: client=rv-out-0506.google.com[209.85.198.239]
Apr 13 18:03:04 webmail postfix/cleanup[7042]: B3246A3075: message-id=<23c8d5620904130314j7f4c619di57c7d8c0d217ed62@mail.gmail.com>
Apr 13 18:03:04 webmail postfix/qmgr[7033]: B3246A3075: from=, size=2277, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/smtpd[7046]: connect from webmail.myfakedomain.net[127.0.0.1]
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/smtpd[7046]: 26BBFA3076: client=rv-out-0506.google.com[209.85.198.239]
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/cleanup[7042]: 26BBFA3076: message-id=<23c8d5620904130314j7f4c619di57c7d8c0d217ed62@mail.gmail.com>
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/qmgr[7033]: 26BBFA3076: from=, size=2751, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/smtpd[7046]: disconnect from webmail.myfakedomain.net[127.0.0.1]
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail dbmail/lmtpd[20480]: Message:[serverchild] serverchild.c,PerformChildTask(+349): incoming connection from [127.0.0.1] by pid [20480]
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/lmtp[7043]: B3246A3075: to=, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10025, delay=2, delays=0.96/0.01/0/1, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok, id=01032-05, from MTA([127.0.0.1]:10026): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 26BBFA3076)
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/qmgr[7033]: B3246A3075: removed

Queuegraph - a RRDtool frontend for Postfix queue-statistics

queuegraph is a very simple mail statistics RRDtool frontend for Postfix that produces daily, weekly, monthly and yearly graphs of Postfix's active, deferred, incoming and bounce queues.The postfix's queue is usually in /var/spool/postfix. queuegraph is created by Ralf Hildebrandt and based on mailgraph by David Schweikert. Below is the dirs in my system:

# ls /var/spool/postfix/
active/ corrupt/ deferred/ etc/ flush/ incoming/ maildrop/ postgrey/ public/ tmp/ var/
bounce/ defer/ dev/ extern/ hold/ lib64/ pid/ private/ saved/ trace/
#

In connection with qshape it can be used to find out if your server is having performance issues:

• a large deferred queue indicates delivery problems
• a large active queue points to slow destinations (e.g. a content_filter)

You can download queuegraph here.

Before you download it, pls check the requirements:

• rrdtools (Mandriva users: urpmi rrdtool)
  
• librrds-perl (Mandriva users: urpmi perl-rrdtool)

After finish downloading it, extract it: tar xzvf queuegraph.tar.gz
List down the extracted files: ls -l (see below)

# ls
queuegraph.cgi* queuegraph-rrd.sh* README
#

Create a cronjob that runs queuegraph-rrd.sh every minute -- this populates the *.rrd database:

* * * * * /usr/local/bin/queuegraph-rrd.sh

Note: On Mandriva, i created a dir under /etc named cron.minutes and copied file queuegraph-rrd.sh into it: cp queuegraph-rrd.sh /etc/cron/minutes

And then I edited crontab by adding this line:
* * * * * root nice -19 run-parts --report /etc/cron.minutes

Then I copied queuegraph.cgi into the cgi-bin directory of my webserver: cp queuegraph.cgi /var/www/cgi-bin/ or where your webserver's cgi directory is (consult your distro manual.) Then chmoded it to 755 so that my webserver can run it: chmod 755 queuegraph.cgi

To see the statistics created by queuegraph, point your web browser to http://yourwebseraddress/cgi-bin/queuegraph.cgi

This is the graph for my postfix queue (without the Month and Year graph):


That's all there is to it.

postfix - mailbox size limit and message size limit

postfix is my MTA of choice. I use it for my mailserver because its simplicity , security and sendmail-compatible (the widely used smtp in the world but not as secure). It is also extensible by plugging other servers for various purposes (antispam, antivirus,database etc).

I had one problem with file attachment larger than 10MB. Users couldn't send it although I have setup squirrelmail (SM) to be able to attach files summed up more than 20MB and I had modified php settings as per here. The problem was not in SM setting. It was postfix. By default, attachment size that can be sent by postfix is 10MB ~ 10240000 byte. How did I know it? I looked in log file (for my system it is in /var/log/mail/errors. For other system, the file to look is /var/log/maillog). The line looked like this:

Feb 26 16:30:53 webmail postfix/sendmail[30775]: fatal: me@mymailserver.org(74): Message file too big

Solution

Open /etc/postfix/main.cf with a text editor of choice and find message_size_limit directive and change accordingly. If it is not there, add the directive like this:

message_size_limit = 20480000

This sets limit to 20MB.

Some other parameters you need to change are in file php.ini which is usually located in dir /etc. Set their parameters as above or higher values as below:

post_max_size = 20M
upload_max_filesize = 20M

reload or restart postfix when you're done:

service postfix reload

or

service postfix restart

There's also mailbox_size_limit directive. You need to change this if SM can not open mailbox sized more than 10 MB.

reference :
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1073614&page=1