Postfix Overview - Introduction - SCN Research

PICKUP(8)
PICKUP(8)
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NAME
pickup - Postfix local mail pickup
SYNOPSIS
pickup [generic Postfix daemon options]
DESCRIPTION
The pickup daemon waits for hints that new mail has been
dropped into the world-writable maildrop directory, and
feeds it into the cleanup(8) daemon. Ill-formatted files
are deleted without notifying the originator. This program
expects to be run from the master(8) process manager.
STANDARDS
None. The pickup daemon does not interact with the outside
world.
SECURITY
The pickup daemon runs with superuser privileges so that
it 1) can open a queue file with the rights of the submitting
user and 2) can access the Postfix private IPC channels.
On the positive side, the program can run chrooted,
opens no files for writing, is careful about what files it
opens for reading, and does not actually touch any data
that is sent to its public service endpoint.
DIAGNOSTICS
Problems and transactions are logged to syslogd(8).
BUGS
The pickup daemon copies mail from file to the cleanup(8)
daemon. It could avoid message copying overhead by sending
a file descriptor instead of file data, but then the
already complex cleanup(8) daemon would have to deal with
unfiltered user data.
CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
The following main.cf parameters are especially relevant
to this program. See the Postfix main.cf file for syntax
details and for default values. Use the postfix reload
command after a configuration change.
Content inspection controls
content_filter
The name of a mail delivery transport that filters
mail and that either bounces mail or re-injects the
result back into Postfix. This parameter uses the
same syntax as the right-hand side of a Postfix
transport table.
Miscellaneous
always_bcc
Address to send a copy of each message that enters
the system.
mail_owner
The process privileges used while not opening a
maildrop file.
queue_directory
Top-level directory of the Postfix queue.
http://www.porcupine.org/postfix-mirror/pickup.8.html
6/26/01