PICKUP(8)

NAME
pickup - Postfix local mail pickup

SYNOPSIS
pickup [generic Postfix daemon options]

DESCRIPTION
The pickup(8) daemon waits for hints that new mail has been dropped into the 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(8) daemon does not interact with the outside world.

SECURITY
The pickup(8) daemon is moderately security sensitive. It runs with fixed low privilege and can run in a chrooted environment. However, the program reads files from potentially hostile users. The pickup(8) daemon 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(8) 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
As the pickup(8) daemon is a relatively long-running process, up to an hour may pass before a main.cf change takes effect. Use the command "postfix reload" command to speed up a change. The text below provides only a parameter summary. See postconf(5) for more details including examples.

CONTENT INSPECTION CONTROLS

content_filter (empty)
    The name of a mail delivery transport that filters mail after it is queued.

receive_override_options (empty)
    Enable or disable recipient validation, built-in content filtering, or address mapping.

MISCELLANEOUS CONTROLS

config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output)
    The default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf configuration files.

daemon_timeout (18000s)
    How much time a Postfix daemon process may take to handle a request before it is terminated by a built-in watchdog timer.

ipc_timeout (3600s)
    The time limit for sending or receiving information over an internal communication channel.

line_length_limit (2048)
    Upon input, long lines are chopped up into pieces of at most this length; upon delivery, long lines are reconstructed.

max_idle (100s)
    The maximum amount of time that an idle Postfix daemon process waits for an incoming connection before terminating voluntarily.

max_use (100)
    The maximal number of incoming connections that a Postfix daemon process will service before terminating voluntarily.

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)
    The location of the Postfix top-level queue directory.

syslog_facility (mail)
    The syslog facility of Postfix logging.

syslog_name (postfix)
    The mail system name that is prepended to the process name in syslog records, so that "smtpd" becomes, for example, "postfix/smtpd".

SEE ALSO
cleanup(8), message canonicalization
sendmail(1), Sendmail-compatible interface
postdrop(1), mail posting agent
postconf(5), configuration parameters
master(5), generic daemon options
master(8), process manager
syslogd(8), system logging

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