postmulti - Postfix multi-instance manager
Enabling multi-instance management:
postmulti -e init [-v]
Iterator mode:
postmulti -l [-aRv] [-g group]
[-i name]
postmulti -p [-av] [-g group]
[-i name] postfix-command...
postmulti -x [-aRv] [-g group]
[-i name] unix-command...
Life-cycle management:
postmulti -e create [-av] [-g
group] [-i name] [-G group] [-I
name] [param=value ...]
postmulti -e import [-av] [-g
group] [-i name] [-G group] [-I
name] [config_directory=/path]
postmulti -e destroy [-v] -i
name
postmulti -e deport [-v] -i
name
postmulti -e enable [-v] -i
name
postmulti -e disable [-v] -i
name
postmulti -e assign [-v] -i
name [-I name] [-G group]
The postmulti(1) command allows a Postfix administrator to
manage multiple Postfix instances on a single host.
postmulti(1) implements two fundamental modes of operation.
In iterator mode, it executes the same command for multiple Postfix
instances. In life-cycle management mode, it adds or deletes
one instance, or changes the multi-instance status of one instance.
Each mode of operation has its own command syntax. For this
reason, each mode is documented in separate sections below.
A multi-instance configuration consists of one primary Postfix
instance, and one or more secondary instances whose configuration directory
pathnames are recorded in the primary instance's main.cf file. Postfix
instances share program files and documentation, but have their own
configuration, queue and data directories.
Currently, only the default Postfix instance can be used as
primary instance in a multi-instance configuration. The postmulti(1)
command does not currently support a -c option to select an
alternative primary instance, and exits with a fatal error if the
MAIL_CONFIG environment variable is set to a non-default
configuration directory.
See the MULTI_INSTANCE_README tutorial for a more detailed
discussion of multi-instance management with postmulti(1).
In iterator mode, postmulti performs the same operation on
all Postfix instances in turn.
If multi-instance support is not enabled, the requested command is
performed just for the primary instance.
Iterator mode implements the following command options:
- -a
- Perform the operation on all instances. This is the default.
- -g group
- Perform the operation only for members of the named group.
- -i name
- Perform the operation only for the instance with the specified
name. You can specify either the instance name or the absolute
pathname of the instance's configuration directory. Specify "-"
to select the primary Postfix instance.
- -R
- Reverse the iteration order. This may be appropriate when updating a
multi-instance system, where "sink" instances are started before
"source" instances.
This option cannot be used with -p.
- -l
- List Postfix instances with their instance name, instance group name,
enable/disable status and configuration directory.
- -p
postfix-command
- Invoke postfix(1) to execute postfix-command. This option
implements the postfix-wrapper(5) interface.
- With "start"-like commands, "postfix check" is
executed for instances that are not enabled. The full list of commands is
specified with the postmulti_start_commands parameter.
- With "stop"-like commands, the iteration order is reversed, and
disabled instances are skipped. The full list of commands is specified
with the postmulti_stop_commands parameter.
- With "reload" and other commands that require a started
instance, disabled instances are skipped. The full list of commands is
specified with the postmulti_control_commands parameter.
- With "status" and other commands that don't require a started
instance, the command is executed for all instances.
- The -p option can also be used interactively to start/stop/etc. a
named instance or instance group. For example, to start just the instances
in the group "msa", invoke postmulti(1) as follows:
- # postmulti -g msa -p start
- -x
unix-command
- Execute the specified unix-command for all Postfix instances. The
command runs with appropriate environment settings for MAIL_CONFIG,
command_directory, daemon_directory, config_directory, queue_directory,
data_directory, multi_instance_name, multi_instance_group and
multi_instance_enable.
Other options
- -v
- Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple -v options
make the software increasingly verbose.
With the -e option postmulti(1) can be used to add
or delete a Postfix instance, and to manage the multi-instance status of an
existing instance.
The following options are implemented:
- -a
- When creating or importing an instance, place the new instance at the
front of the secondary instance list.
- -g group
- When creating or importing an instance, place the new instance before the
first secondary instance that is a member of the specified group.
- -i name
- When creating or importing an instance, place the new instance before the
matching secondary instance.
With other life-cycle operations, apply the operation to the
named existing instance. Specify "-" to select the primary
Postfix instance.
- -I name
- Assign the specified instance name to an existing instance,
newly-created instance, or imported instance. Instance names other than
"-" (which makes the instance "nameless") must start
with "postfix-". This restriction reduces the likelihood of name
collisions with system files.
- -G group
- Assign the specified group name to an existing instance or to a
newly created or imported instance.
- -e action
- "Edit" managed instances. The following actions are
supported:
- init
- This command is required before postmulti(1) can be used to manage
Postfix instances. The "postmulti -e init" command updates the
primary instance's main.cf file by setting:
-
multi_instance_wrapper =
${command_directory}/postmulti -p --
multi_instance_enable = yes
- You can set these by other means if you prefer.
- create
- Create a new Postfix instance and add it to the multi_instance_directories
parameter of the primary instance. The "-I name"
option is recommended to give the instance a short name that is used to
construct default values for the private directories of the new instance.
The "-G group" option may be specified to assign
the instance to a group, otherwise, the new instance is not a member of
any group.
The new instance main.cf is the stock main.cf with the
parameters that specify the locations of shared files cloned from the
primary instance. For "nameless" instances, you should
manually adjust "syslog_name" to yield a unique
"logtag" starting with "postfix-" that will uniquely
identify the instance in the mail logs. It is simpler to assign the
instance a short name with the "-I name"
option.
Optional "name=value" arguments specify the instance
config_directory, queue_directory and data_directory. For example:
-
# postmulti -I postfix-mumble \
-G mygroup -e create \
config_directory=/my/config/dir \
queue_directory=/my/queue/dir \
data_directory=/my/data/dir
- If any of these pathnames is not supplied, the program attempts to
generate the missing pathname(s) by taking the corresponding primary
instance pathname, and replacing the last pathname component by the value
of the -I option.
If the instance configuration directory already exists, and
contains both a main.cf and master.cf file, create will
"import" the instance as-is. For existing instances,
create and import are identical.
- import
- Import an existing instance into the list of instances managed by the
postmulti(1) multi-instance manager. This adds the instance to the
multi_instance_directories list of the primary instance. If the
"-I name" option is provided it specifies the new
name for the instance and is used to define a default location for the
instance configuration directory (as with create above). The
"-G group" option may be used to assign the
instance to a group. Add a
"config_directory=/path" argument to override a
default pathname based on "-I name".
- destroy
- Destroy a secondary Postfix instance. To be a candidate for destruction an
instance must be disabled, stopped and its queue must not contain any
messages. Attempts to destroy the primary Postfix instance trigger a fatal
error, without destroying the instance.
The instance is removed from the primary instance main.cf
file's alternate_config_directories parameter and its data, queue and
configuration directories are cleaned of files and directories created
by the Postfix system. The main.cf and master.cf files are removed from
the configuration directory even if they have been modified since
initial creation. Finally, the instance is "deported" from the
list of managed instances.
If other files are present in instance private directories,
the directories may not be fully removed, a warning is logged to alert
the administrator. It is expected that an instance built using
"fresh" directories via the create action will be fully
removed by the destroy action (if first disabled). If the
instance configuration and queue directories are populated with
additional files (access and rewriting tables, chroot jail content,
etc.) the instance directories will not be fully removed.
The destroy action triggers potentially dangerous file
removal operations. Make sure the instance's data, queue and
configuration directories are set correctly and do not contain any
valuable files.
- deport
- Deport a secondary instance from the list of managed instances. This
deletes the instance configuration directory from the primary instance's
multi_instance_directories list, but does not remove any files or
directories.
- assign
- Assign a new instance name or a new group name to the selected instance.
Use "-G -" to specify "no group" and
"-I -" to specify "no name". If you choose to
make an instance "nameless", set a suitable syslog_name in the
corresponding main.cf file.
- enable
- Mark the selected instance as enabled. This just sets the
multi_instance_enable parameter to "yes" in the instance's
main.cf file.
- disable
- Mark the selected instance as disabled. This means that the instance will
not be started etc. with "postfix start", "postmulti -p
start" and so on. The instance can still be started etc. with
"postfix -c config-directory start".
Other options
- -v
- Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple -v options
make the software increasingly verbose.
The postmulti(1) command exports the following environment
variables before executing the requested command for a given
instance:
- MAIL_VERBOSE
- This is set when the -v command-line option is present.
- MAIL_CONFIG
- The location of the configuration directory of the instance.
- config_directory
(see 'postconf -d' output)
- The default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf configuration
files.
- daemon_directory
(see 'postconf -d' output)
- The directory with Postfix support programs and daemon programs.
- import_environment
(see 'postconf -d' output)
- The list of environment variables that a privileged Postfix process will
import from a non-Postfix parent process, or name=value environment
overrides.
- multi_instance_directories
(empty)
- An optional list of non-default Postfix configuration directories; these
directories belong to additional Postfix instances that share the Postfix
executable files and documentation with the default Postfix instance, and
that are started, stopped, etc., together with the default Postfix
instance.
- multi_instance_group
(empty)
- The optional instance group name of this Postfix instance.
- multi_instance_name
(empty)
- The optional instance name of this Postfix instance.
- multi_instance_enable
(no)
- Allow this Postfix instance to be started, stopped, etc., by a
multi-instance manager.
- postmulti_start_commands
(start)
- The postfix(1) commands that the postmulti(1) instance
manager treats as "start" commands.
- postmulti_stop_commands
(see 'postconf -d' output)
- The postfix(1) commands that the postmulti(1) instance
manager treats as "stop" commands.
- postmulti_control_commands
(reload flush)
- The postfix(1) commands that the postmulti(1) instance
manager treats as "control" commands, that operate on running
instances.
- syslog_facility
(mail)
- The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
- syslog_name
(see 'postconf -d' output)
- A prefix that is prepended to the process name in syslog records, so that,
for example, "smtpd" becomes "prefix/smtpd".
Available in Postfix 3.0 and later:
- meta_directory
(see 'postconf -d' output)
- The location of non-executable files that are shared among multiple
Postfix instances, such as postfix-files, dynamicmaps.cf, and the
multi-instance template files main.cf.proto and master.cf.proto.
- shlib_directory
(see 'postconf -d' output)
- The location of Postfix dynamically-linked libraries (libpostfix-*.so),
and the default location of Postfix database plugins (postfix-*.so) that
have a relative pathname in the dynamicmaps.cf file.
$meta_directory/main.cf.proto, stock configuration file
$meta_directory/master.cf.proto, stock configuration file
$daemon_directory/postmulti-script, life-cycle helper program
Use "postconf readme_directory" or
"postconf html_directory" to locate this
information.
MULTI_INSTANCE_README, Postfix multi-instance management
The postmulti(1) command was introduced with Postfix
version 2.6.
The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this
software.
Victor Duchovni
Morgan Stanley
Wietse Venema
IBM T.J. Watson Research
P.O. Box 704
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
Wietse Venema
Google, Inc.
111 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10011, USA