Secondary MX - all mail held not delivered?

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maxfloden
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Secondary MX - all mail held not delivered?

Post by maxfloden »

We were moving our main mail server this weekend so any mail sent to us were held at our secondary mx at rollernet. However, when checking the mail log at rollernet it seems not all held email has been delivered. I am also missing a couple of test emails that I sent to myself just after we shutdown our own server.
I can't remember for how long and how much rollernet were holding but I read the spec when I set it up and I think it was weeks and gb?
Could you please check if any mail is still stuck at rollernet?
Thanks!
RollerNetSupport
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Post by RollerNetSupport »

I see them; I'll do a flush on the domain shortly so you don't have to wait for the retry period to expire.
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Roller Network LLC
maxfloden
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Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Post by maxfloden »

Could you tell me what the retry period is?

The server had been up all day yesterday and some of the email in the log had been delivered but some were still being held, very strange?

Today the server has been going up and down a few times and mail in the log still seem to be held at rollernet.

Thanks.

Ps: May I suggest an improvement to the log function: Show time zone or even better (but more difficult to implement), let the user set as a preference what time zone he/she is in and show all times as the users local time. I'm myself in CET (Central European Time).
maxfloden
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Post by maxfloden »

Ps2: And yet even better would be if it would be possible to see what is being held at the secondary mx and maybe even release it!
RollerNetSupport
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Post by RollerNetSupport »

The retry interval is a sliding scale to prevent the entire queue from being deliverd in large bursts. The inital delay is 15 minutes. If it fails, that time is increased. On each successive retry the time between retries is increated to a maximum of 24 hours. So if a server has been down for a while, the system will only try to deliver once a day, unless it gets an ETRN command or I do a flush manually. Since mail is held for three weeks without disk quotas, the sliding scale works better than a fixed interval.

I will add some monitors to indicate if there is mail waiting at any of the secondaries along with the ability to flush the queues through the account manager. I have to finish some work on a new server to increase capacity for mail2/ns2, but once it is done, I can work on other stuff.
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Roller Network LLC
maxfloden
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Post by maxfloden »

Thanks. Excellent, you're doing a great job!
RollerNetSupport
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Post by RollerNetSupport »

I've added the queue status monitors to the system. They will show a messages in queue count and provide the option to flush the queue through the account manager. It's under the resource access section, but you can access it directly with this URL once logged in:

http://acc.rollernet.us/index.php?action=access

I was working on an option to delete the queue, too, but I ran into some problems with the method I was using to send commands from the account manager to the server. I'll have to think of something different to add that feature. In the meantime, the queue count and flush options are now available.
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maxfloden
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Post by maxfloden »

Very nice!

Related: I'm using the SMTP redirection service this means I "automaticaly" also get the backup MX-service on those domains, right? (ie if my mail server that the domains are redirected to fail, mail will be held?)
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Post by RollerNetSupport »

Yes, the MX backup is implied when using SMTP redirection.
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maxfloden
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Post by maxfloden »

That's what I thought. Thanks.
maxfloden
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Post by maxfloden »

I just "flushed" a queue containing 13 messages but nothing got to my mail server. Just so I understand, "flush" does mean "release" not "delete", right?
What could have happened to those messages?
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Post by RollerNetSupport »

That's correct; I'll change the wording on the button to say "release" instead.

The queue count isn't 100% accurate; it gets the information from a file containing a list of queue numbers that is updated by Postfix queue manager. When signaled to release the queue for a domain, that list of queue numbers is used to move those specific messages into the "active" queue and attempt delivery.

During the time the messages are in the active queue, the queue count will be zero, since only deferred messages are counted. Messages are added back to the file list only if they return to the "deferred" queue. It's possible for something to seem disappeared in the following cases:

* The messages were already delivered before the file was refreshed or a release was requested. The deferred message file is synchronized every 24 hours, so the message could have been delivered before the refresh. If a message is delivered by the automatic queue retry, it will not be removed from the deferred list.

* The message is older than the maximum queue lifetime of three weeks. At this point, the message is treated as a bounced message if delivery fails. It will not be returned to the deferred queue.

The file is synchronized by attempting delivery of all messages listed and seeing which ones reappear in the "deferred" queue. This happens automatically; sending an ETRN or using the account manager is effectively a manual synchronization. If you release the queue and the count doesn't change from zero within 15 minutes, you can safely assume that all mail destined for your domain has been delivered.
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maxfloden
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Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2004 3:04 pm
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Post by maxfloden »

Ok, thanks.
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