[TriLUG] Postfix Configuration Question

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Jason Purdy wrote:

> Hi Ken,
>
> I know this probably doesn't address the root of your issue, but I 
> have this cron job that runs daily to clean out those bogus rejects:
> <terribleness stripped>
> Cheers,
>
> Jason

ACK!   No no no!  :)  What happens if I go out of town, connect via my 
friends DSL, use his SMTP server, and send you mail -- but my mail 
server back home is down?  So I loose a notification that the mail 
wasn't delivered.  But what happens if I sent that message 5 mins before 
the cron job runs, and my mail server wasn't down but for 5 mins?  I 
lost my undeliverable notification due to a strange coincidence that 
would be very difficult to chase down.  A much better option would be to 
upgrade to Postfix 2.1, and use the built-in feature 
(bounce_queue_lifetime) that lets you limit the amount of time any 
undeliverable or other mailer-daemon generated message can live in the 
queue.  You can have them automatically expire after 4 hours, 8 hours, 1 
day, what ever your needs require.  But please don't arbitrarily whack 
them at a given time.  :)

Paranoid mail admin,
Aaron S. Joyner