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📋 NAME

oqmgr - old Postfix queue manager

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
Reload configuration	postfix reload	🔄 Reload queue manager config after changes
Force deferred queue scan	sendmail -q	⚡ Kick off delivery of deferred mail
View mail queue	mailq or postqueue -p	📋 List queued messages
Flush entire queue	postfix flush	🧹 Attempt immediate delivery of all queued mail
Deliver a specific message	postqueue -i queue_id	📬 Schedule a single message for delivery

📝 SYNOPISIS

oqmgr [generic Postfix daemon options]

📖 DESCRIPTION

The oqmgr(8) daemon awaits the arrival of incoming mail and arranges for its delivery via Postfix delivery processes. The actual mail routing strategy is delegated to the trivial-rewrite(8) daemon. This program expects to be run from the master(8) process manager.

Mail addressed to the local double‑bounce address is logged and discarded. This stops potential loops caused by undeliverable bounce notifications.

📦 MAIL QUEUES

The oqmgr(8) daemon maintains the following queues:

• 📥 incoming — Inbound mail from the network, or mail picked up by the local pickup(8) agent from the maildrop directory.
• 📤 active — Messages that the queue manager has opened for delivery. Only a limited number of messages is allowed to enter the active queue (leaky bucket strategy, for a fixed delivery rate).
• ⏳ deferred — Mail that could not be delivered upon the first attempt. The queue manager implements exponential backoff by doubling the time between delivery attempts.
• 💥 corrupt — Unreadable or damaged queue files are moved here for inspection.
• ⏸️ hold — Messages that are kept "on hold" are kept here until someone sets them free.

📬 DELIVERY STATUS REPORTS

The oqmgr(8) daemon keeps an eye on per‑message delivery status reports in the following directories. Each status report file has the same name as the corresponding message file:

• 💔 bounce — Per‑recipient status information about why mail is bounced. These files are maintained by the bounce(8) daemon.
• ⏰ defer — Per‑recipient status information about why mail is delayed. These files are maintained by the defer(8) daemon.
• 🔍 trace — Per‑recipient status information as requested with the Postfix "sendmail -v" or "sendmail -bv" command. These files are maintained by the trace(8) daemon.

The oqmgr(8) daemon is responsible for asking the bounce(8), defer(8) or trace(8) daemons to send delivery reports.

🧠 STRATEGIES

The queue manager implements a variety of strategies for either opening queue files (input) or for message delivery (output).

• 🪣 Leaky bucket — This strategy limits the number of messages in the active queue and prevents the queue manager from running out of memory under heavy load.
• ⚖️ Fairness — When the active queue has room, the queue manager takes one message from the incoming queue and one from the deferred queue. This prevents a large mail backlog from blocking the delivery of new mail.
• 🐢 Slow start — This strategy eliminates "thundering herd" problems by slowly adjusting the number of parallel deliveries to the same destination.
• 🔄 Round robin — The queue manager sorts delivery requests by destination. Round‑robin selection prevents one destination from dominating deliveries to other destinations.
• 📈 Exponential backoff — Mail that cannot be delivered upon the first attempt is deferred. The time interval between delivery attempts is doubled after each attempt.
• 🗃️ Destination status cache — The queue manager avoids unnecessary delivery attempts by maintaining a short‑term, in‑memory list of unreachable destinations.

⚡ TRIGGERS

On an idle system, the queue manager waits for the arrival of trigger events, or it waits for a timer to go off. A trigger is a one‑byte message. Depending on the message received, the queue manager performs one of the following actions (the message is followed by the symbolic constant used internally by the software):

• D (QMGR_REQ_SCAN_DEFERRED) — Start a deferred queue scan. If a deferred queue scan is already in progress, that scan will be restarted as soon as it finishes.
• I (QMGR_REQ_SCAN_INCOMING) — Start an incoming queue scan. If an incoming queue scan is already in progress, that scan will be restarted as soon as it finishes.
• A (QMGR_REQ_SCAN_ALL) — Ignore deferred queue file time stamps. The request affects the next deferred queue scan.
• F (QMGR_REQ_FLUSH_DEAD) — Purge all information about dead transports and destinations.
• W (TRIGGER_REQ_WAKEUP) — Wakeup call. This is used by the master server to instantiate servers that should not go away forever. The action is to start an incoming queue scan.

The oqmgr(8) daemon reads an entire buffer worth of triggers. Multiple identical trigger requests are collapsed into one, and trigger requests are sorted so that A and F precede D and I. Thus, in order to force a deferred queue run, one would request A F D; in order to notify the queue manager of the arrival of new mail one would request I.

📜 STANDARDS

• RFC 3463 (Enhanced status codes)
• RFC 3464 (Delivery status notifications)

🔒 SECURITY

The oqmgr(8) daemon is not security sensitive. It reads single‑character messages from untrusted local users, and thus may be susceptible to denial of service attacks. The oqmgr(8) daemon does not talk to the outside world, and it can be run at fixed low privilege in a chrooted environment.

🔍 DIAGNOSTICS

Problems and transactions are logged to the syslogd(8) or postlogd(8) daemon. Corrupted message files are saved to the corrupt queue for further inspection.

Depending on the setting of the notify_classes parameter, the postmaster is notified of bounces and of other trouble.

🐛 BUGS

A single queue manager process has to compete for disk access with multiple front‑end processes such as cleanup(8). A sudden burst of inbound mail can negatively impact outbound delivery rates.

⚙️ CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS

Changes to main.cf are not picked up automatically, as oqmgr(8) is a persistent process. Use the command postfix reload after a configuration change.

The text below provides only a parameter summary. See postconf(5) for more details including examples.

In the text below, transport is the first field in a master.cf entry.

🎛️ COMPATIBILITY CONTROLS

Available before Postfix version 2.5:

• allow_min_user (no) — Allow a sender or recipient address to have `-` as the first character.

Available with Postfix version 2.7 and later:

• default_filter_nexthop (empty) — When a content_filter or FILTER request specifies no explicit next‑hop destination, use $default_filter_nexthop instead; when that value is empty, use the domain in the recipient address.

🟢 ACTIVE QUEUE CONTROLS

• qmgr_clog_warn_time (300s) — The minimal delay between warnings that a specific destination is clogging up the Postfix active queue.
• qmgr_message_active_limit (20000) — The maximal number of messages in the active queue.
• qmgr_message_recipient_limit (20000) — The maximal number of recipients held in memory by the Postfix queue manager, and the maximal size of the short‑term, in‑memory "dead" destination status cache.

📦 DELIVERY CONCURRENCY CONTROLS

• qmgr_fudge_factor (100) — Obsolete: the percentage of delivery resources that a busy mail system will use up for delivery of a large mailing list message.
• initial_destination_concurrency (5) — The initial per‑destination concurrency level for parallel delivery to the same destination.
• default_destination_concurrency_limit (20) — The default maximal number of parallel deliveries to the same destination.
• transport_destination_concurrency_limit ($default_destination_concurrency_limit) — A transport‑specific override for the default_destination_concurrency_limit parameter value, where transport is the master.cf name of the message delivery transport.

Available in Postfix version 2.5 and later:

• transport_initial_destination_concurrency ($initial_destination_concurrency) — A transport‑specific override for the initial_destination_concurrency parameter value.
• default_destination_concurrency_failed_cohort_limit (1) — How many pseudo‑cohorts must suffer connection or handshake failure before a specific destination is considered unavailable (further delivery suspended).
• transport_destination_concurrency_failed_cohort_limit ($default_destination_concurrency_failed_cohort_limit) — Transport‑specific override.
• default_destination_concurrency_negative_feedback (1) — Per‑destination amount of delivery concurrency negative feedback after a delivery completes with a connection or handshake failure.
• transport_destination_concurrency_negative_feedback ($default_destination_concurrency_negative_feedback) — Transport‑specific override.
• default_destination_concurrency_positive_feedback (1) — Per‑destination amount of delivery concurrency positive feedback after a delivery completes without connection or handshake failure.
• transport_destination_concurrency_positive_feedback ($default_destination_concurrency_positive_feedback) — Transport‑specific override.
• destination_concurrency_feedback_debug (no) — Make the queue manager's feedback algorithm verbose for performance analysis.

👥 RECIPIENT SCHEDULING CONTROLS

• default_destination_recipient_limit (50) — The default maximal number of recipients per message delivery.
• transport_destination_recipient_limit ($default_destination_recipient_limit) — Transport‑specific override.

⚙️ OTHER RESOURCE AND RATE CONTROLS

• minimal_backoff_time (300s) — Minimal time between attempts to deliver a deferred message; prior to Postfix 2.4 default was 1000s.
• maximal_backoff_time (4000s) — Maximal time between attempts to deliver a deferred message.
• maximal_queue_lifetime (5d) — Consider a message undeliverable when delivery fails with a temporary error and time in queue reaches this limit.
• queue_run_delay (300s) — Time between deferred queue scans; prior to Postfix 2.4 default was 1000s.
• transport_retry_time (60s) — Time between attempts to contact a malfunctioning message delivery transport.

Available in Postfix version 2.1 and later:

• bounce_queue_lifetime (5d) — Consider a bounce message undeliverable when delivery fails with a temporary error and time in queue reaches this limit.

Available in Postfix version 2.5 and later:

• default_destination_rate_delay (0s) — Default amount of delay inserted between individual message deliveries to the same destination over the same transport.
• transport_destination_rate_delay ($default_destination_rate_delay) — Transport‑specific override.

Available in Postfix version 3.1 and later:

• default_transport_rate_delay (0s) — Default amount of delay inserted between individual message deliveries over the same transport, regardless of destination.
• transport_transport_rate_delay ($default_transport_rate_delay) — Transport‑specific override (initial transport in parameter name is the master.cf name).

🛡️ SAFETY CONTROLS

• qmgr_daemon_timeout (1000s) — How much time a Postfix queue manager process may take to handle a request before it is terminated by a built‑in watchdog timer.
• qmgr_ipc_timeout (60s) — Time limit for the queue manager to send or receive information over an internal communication channel.

Available in Postfix version 3.1 and later:

• address_verify_pending_request_limit (see 'postconf -d' output) — A safety limit that prevents address verification requests from overwhelming the Postfix queue.

📋 MISCELLANEOUS CONTROLS

• config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output) — Default location of Postfix main.cf and master.cf configuration files.
• defer_transports (empty) — Names of message delivery transports that should not deliver mail unless someone issues sendmail -q or equivalent.
• delay_logging_resolution_limit (2) — Maximal number of digits after decimal point when logging sub‑second delay values.
• helpful_warnings (yes) — Log warnings about problematic configuration settings, and provide helpful suggestions.
• process_id (read-only) — The process ID of a Postfix command or daemon process.
• process_name (read-only) — The process name of a Postfix command or daemon process.
• queue_directory (see 'postconf -d' output) — Location of the Postfix top‑level queue directory.
• syslog_facility (mail) — The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
• syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output) — A prefix prepended to the process name in syslog records.

Available in Postfix version 3.0 and later:

• confirm_delay_cleared (no) — After sending a "your message is delayed" notification, inform the sender when the delay clears up.

Available in Postfix 3.3 and later:

• service_name (read-only) — The master.cf service name of a Postfix daemon process.

Available in Postfix 3.5 and later:

• info_log_address_format (external) — The email address form used in non‑debug logging (info, warning, etc.).

📁 FILES

• /var/spool/postfix/incoming — incoming queue
• /var/spool/postfix/active — active queue
• /var/spool/postfix/deferred — deferred queue
• /var/spool/postfix/bounce — non‑delivery status
• /var/spool/postfix/defer — non‑delivery status
• /var/spool/postfix/trace — delivery status

📚 SEE ALSO

• trivial-rewrite(8) — address routing
• bounce(8) — delivery status reports
• postconf(5) — configuration parameters
• master(5) — generic daemon options
• master(8) — process manager
• postlogd(8) — Postfix logging
• syslogd(8) — system logging

📖 README FILES

Use postconf readme_directory or postconf html_directory to locate this information.

QSHAPE_README — Postfix queue analysis

📜 LICENSE

The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software.

👤 AUTHOR(S)

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

📋 NAME 🚀 Quick Reference 📝 SYNOPISIS 📖 DESCRIPTION 📦 MAIL QUEUES 📬 DELIVERY STATUS REPORTS 🧠 STRATEGIES ⚡ TRIGGERS 📜 STANDARDS 🔒 SECURITY 🔍 DIAGNOSTICS 🐛 BUGS ⚙️ CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS 📁 FILES 📚 SEE ALSO 📖 README FILES 📜 LICENSE 👤 AUTHOR(S)