Postfix Debugging Howto

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Purpose of this document

This document describes how to debug parts of the Postfix mail system when
things do not work according to expectation. The methods vary from making
Postfix log a lot of detail, to running some daemon processes under control of
a call tracer or debugger.

The text assumes that the Postfix main.cf and master.cf configuration files are
stored in directory /usr/local/etc/postfix. You can use the command "postconf
config_directory" to find out the actual location of this directory on your
machine.

Listed in order of increasing invasiveness, the debugging techniques are as
follows:

  * Look for obvious signs of trouble
  * Debugging Postfix from inside
  * Try turning off chroot operation in master.cf
  * Verbose logging for specific SMTP connections
  * Record the SMTP session with a network sniffer
  * Making Postfix daemon programs more verbose
  * Manually tracing a Postfix daemon process
  * Automatically tracing a Postfix daemon process
  * Running daemon programs with the interactive ddd debugger
  * Running daemon programs with the interactive gdb debugger
  * Running daemon programs under a non-interactive debugger
  * Unreasonable behavior
  * Reporting problems to postfix-users@postfix.org

Look for obvious signs of trouble

Postfix logs all failed and successful deliveries to a logfile. The file is
usually called /var/log/maillog or /var/log/mail; the exact pathname is defined
in the /etc/syslog.conf file.

When Postfix does not receive or deliver mail, the first order of business is
to look for errors that prevent Postfix from working properly:

    % egrep '(warning|error|fatal|panic):' /some/log/file | more

Note: the most important message is near the BEGINNING of the output. Error
messages that come later are less useful.

The nature of each problem is indicated as follows:

  * "panic" indicates a problem in the software itself that only a programmer
    can fix. Postfix cannot proceed until this is fixed.

  * "fatal" is the result of missing files, incorrect permissions, incorrect
    configuration file settings that you can fix. Postfix cannot proceed until
    this is fixed.

  * "error" reports an error condition. For safety reasons, a Postfix process
    will terminate when more than 13 of these happen.

  * "warning" indicates a non-fatal error. These are problems that you may not
    be able to fix (such as a broken DNS server elsewhere on the network) but
    may also indicate local configuration errors that could become a problem
    later.

Debugging Postfix from inside

Postfix version 2.1 and later can produce mail delivery reports for debugging
purposes. These reports not only show sender/recipient addresses after address
rewriting and alias expansion or forwarding, they also show information about
delivery to mailbox, delivery to non-Postfix command, responses from remote
SMTP servers, and so on.

Postfix can produce two types of mail delivery reports for debugging:

  * What-if: report what would happen, but do not actually deliver mail. This
    mode of operation is requested with:

    % /usr/sbin/sendmail -bv address...
    Mail Delivery Status Report will be mailed to <your login name>.

  * What happened: deliver mail and report successes and/or failures, including
    replies from remote SMTP servers. This mode of operation is requested with:

    % /usr/sbin/sendmail -v address...
    Mail Delivery Status Report will be mailed to <your login name>.

These reports contain information that is generated by Postfix delivery agents.
Since these run as daemon processes that cannot interact with users directly,
the result is sent as mail to the sender of the test message. The format of
these reports is practically identical to that of ordinary non-delivery
notifications.

For a detailed example of a mail delivery status report, see the debugging
section at the end of the ADDRESS_REWRITING_README document.

Try turning off chroot operation in master.cf

A common mistake is to turn on chroot operation in the master.cf file without
going through all the necessary steps to set up a chroot environment. This
causes Postfix daemon processes to fail due to all kinds of missing files.

The example below shows an SMTP server that is configured with chroot turned
off:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf:
        # =============================================================
        # service type  private unpriv  chroot  wakeup  maxproc command
        #               (yes)   (yes)   (yes)   (never) (100)
        # =============================================================
        smtp      inet  n       -       n       -       -       smtpd

Inspect master.cf for any processes that have chroot operation not turned off.
If you find any, save a copy of the master.cf file, and edit the entries in
question. After executing the command "postfix reload", see if the problem has
gone away.

If turning off chrooted operation made the problem go away, then
congratulations. Leaving Postfix running in this way is adequate for most
sites. If you prefer chrooted operation, see the Postfix
BASIC_CONFIGURATION_README file for information about how to prepare Postfix
for chrooted operation.

Verbose logging for specific SMTP connections

In /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf, list the remote site name or address in the
debug_peer_list parameter. For example, in order to make the software log a lot
of information to the syslog daemon for connections from or to the loopback
interface:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf:
        debug_peer_list = 127.0.0.1

You can specify one or more hosts, domains, addresses or net/masks. To make the
change effective immediately, execute the command "postfix reload".

Record the SMTP session with a network sniffer

This example uses tcpdump. In order to record a conversation you need to
specify a large enough buffer with the "-s" option or else you will miss some
or all of the packet payload.

    # tcpdump -w /file/name -s 0 host example.com and port 25

Older tcpdump versions don't support "-s 0"; in that case, use "-s 2000"
instead.

Run this for a while, stop with Ctrl-C when done. To view the data use a binary
viewer, ethereal, or good old less.

Making Postfix daemon programs more verbose

Append one or more "-v" options to selected daemon definitions in /usr/local/etc/postfix/
master.cf and type "postfix reload". This will cause a lot of activity to be
logged to the syslog daemon. For example, to make the Postfix SMTP server
process more verbose:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf:
        smtp      inet  n       -       n       -       -       smtpd -v

To diagnose problems with address rewriting specify a "-v" option for the
cleanup(8) and/or trivial-rewrite(8) daemon, and to diagnose problems with mail
delivery specify a "-v" option for the qmgr(8) or oqmgr(8) queue manager, or
for the lmtp(8), local(8), pipe(8), smtp(8), or virtual(8) delivery agent.

Manually tracing a Postfix daemon process

Many systems allow you to inspect a running process with a system call tracer.
For example:

    # trace -p process-id (SunOS 4)
    # strace -p process-id (Linux and many others)
    # truss -p process-id (Solaris, FreeBSD)
    # ktrace -p process-id (generic 4.4BSD)

Even more informative are traces of system library calls. Examples:

    # ltrace -p process-id (Linux, also ported to FreeBSD and BSD/OS)
    # sotruss -p process-id (Solaris)

See your system documentation for details.

Tracing a running process can give valuable information about what a process is
attempting to do. This is as much information as you can get without running an
interactive debugger program, as described in a later section.

Automatically tracing a Postfix daemon process

Postfix can attach a call tracer whenever a daemon process starts. Call tracers
come in several kinds.

 1. System call tracers such as trace, truss, strace, or ktrace. These show the
    communication between the process and the kernel.

 2. Library call tracers such as sotruss and ltrace. These show calls of
    library routines, and give a better idea of what is going on within the
    process.

Append a -D option to the suspect command in /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf, for
example:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf:
        smtp      inet  n       -       n       -       -       smtpd -D

Edit the debugger_command definition in /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf so that it invokes
the call tracer of your choice, for example:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf:
        debugger_command =
             PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin;
             (truss -p $process_id 2>&1 | logger -p mail.info) & sleep 5

Type "postfix reload" and watch the logfile.

Running daemon programs with the interactive ddd debugger

If you have X Windows installed on the Postfix machine, then an interactive
debugger such as ddd can be convenient.

Edit the debugger_command definition in /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf so that it invokes
ddd:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf:
        debugger_command =
             PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
             ddd $daemon_directory/$process_name $process_id & sleep 5

Be sure that gdb is in the command search path, and export XAUTHORITY so that X
access control works, for example:

    % setenv XAUTHORITY ~/.Xauthority (csh syntax)
    $ export XAUTHORITY=$HOME/.Xauthority (sh syntax)

Append a -D option to the suspect daemon definition in /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf,
for example:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf:
        smtp      inet  n       -       n       -       -       smtpd -D

Stop and start the Postfix system. This is necessary so that Postfix runs with
the proper XAUTHORITY and DISPLAY settings.

Whenever the suspect daemon process is started, a debugger window pops up and
you can watch in detail what happens.

Running daemon programs with the interactive gdb debugger

If you have the screen command installed on the Postfix machine, then you can
run an interactive debugger such as gdb as follows.

Edit the debugger_command definition in /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf so that it runs
gdb inside a detached screen session:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf:
        debugger_command =
            PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin; export PATH; HOME=/root;
            export HOME; screen -e^tt -dmS $process_name gdb
            $daemon_directory/$process_name $process_id & sleep 2

Be sure that gdb is in the command search path.

Append a -D option to the suspect daemon definition in /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf,
for example:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf:
        smtp      inet  n       -       n       -       -       smtpd -D

Execute the command "postfix reload" and wait until a daemon process is started
(you can see this in the maillog file).

Then attach to the screen, and debug away:

    # HOME=/root screen -r
    gdb) continue
    gdb) where

Running daemon programs under a non-interactive debugger

If you do not have X Windows installed on the Postfix machine, or if you are
not familiar with interactive debuggers, then you can try to run gdb in non-
interactive mode, and have it print a stack trace when the process crashes.

Edit the debugger_command definition in /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf so that it invokes
the gdb debugger:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf:
        debugger_command =
            PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin; export PATH; (echo cont; echo
            where; sleep 8640000) | gdb $daemon_directory/$process_name
            $process_id 2>&1
            >$config_directory/$process_name.$process_id.log & sleep 5

Append a -D option to the suspect daemon in /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf, for
example:

    /usr/local/etc/postfix/master.cf:
        smtp      inet  n       -       n       -       -       smtpd -D

Type "postfix reload" to make the configuration changes effective.

Whenever a suspect daemon process is started, an output file is created, named
after the daemon and process ID (for example, smtpd.12345.log). When the
process crashes, a stack trace (with output from the "where" command) is
written to its logfile.

Unreasonable behavior

Sometimes the behavior exhibited by Postfix just does not match the source
code. Why can a program deviate from the instructions given by its author?
There are two possibilities.

  * The compiler has erred. This rarely happens.

  * The hardware has erred. Does the machine have ECC memory?

In both cases, the program being executed is not the program that was supposed
to be executed, so anything could happen.

There is a third possibility:

  * Bugs in system software (kernel or libraries).

Hardware-related failures usually do not reproduce in exactly the same way
after power cycling and rebooting the system. There's little Postfix can do
about bad hardware. Be sure to use hardware that at the very least can detect
memory errors. Otherwise, Postfix will just be waiting to be hit by a bit
error. Critical systems deserve real hardware.

When a compiler makes an error, the problem can be reproduced whenever the
resulting program is run. Compiler errors are most likely to happen in the code
optimizer. If a problem is reproducible across power cycles and system reboots,
it can be worthwhile to rebuild Postfix with optimization disabled, and to see
if optimization makes a difference.

In order to compile Postfix with optimizations turned off:

    % make tidy
    % make makefiles OPT=

This produces a set of Makefiles that do not request compiler optimization.

Once the makefiles are set up, build the software:

    % make
    % su
    Password:
    # make install

If the problem goes away, then it is time to ask your vendor for help.

Reporting problems to postfix-users@postfix.org

The people who participate on postfix-users@postfix.org are very helpful,
especially if YOU provide them with sufficient information. Remember, these
volunteers are willing to help, but their time is limited.

When reporting a problem, be sure to include the following information.

  * A summary of the problem. Please do not just send some logging without
    explanation of what YOU believe is wrong.

  * Complete error messages. Please use cut-and-paste, or use attachments,
    instead of reciting information from memory.

  * Postfix logging. See the text at the top of the DEBUG_README document to
    find out where logging is stored. Please do not frustrate the helpers by
    word wrapping the logging. If the logging is more than a few kbytes of
    text, consider posting an URL on a web or ftp site.

  * Consider using a test email address so that you don't have to reveal email
    addresses or passwords of innocent people.

  * If you can't use a test email address, please anonymize email addresses and
    host names consistently. Replace each letter by "A", each digit by "D" so
    that the helpers can still recognize syntactical errors.

  * Output from "postconf -n". Please do not send your main.cf file, or 500+
    lines of postconf output.

  * Better, provide output from the postfinger tool. This can be found at http:
    //ftp.wl0.org/SOURCES/postfinger.

  * If the problem is SASL related, consider including the output from the
    saslfinger tool. This can be found at http://postfix.state-of-mind.de/
    patrick.koetter/saslfinger/.

  * If the problem is about too much mail in the queue, consider including
    output from the qshape tool, as described in the QSHAPE_README file.

  * If the problem is protocol related (connections time out, or an SMTP server
    complains about syntax errors etc.) consider recording a session with
    tcpdump, as described in the DEBUG_README document.

