PIPE(8) System Manager's Manual PIPE(8)
NAME
pipe - Postfix delivery to external command
SYNOPSIS
pipe [generic Postfix daemon options] command_attributes...
DESCRIPTION
The pipe(8) daemon processes requests from the Postfix queue manager to deliver messages to external commands.
This program expects to be run from the master(8) process manager.
Message attributes such as sender address, recipient address and next-hop host name can be specified as com‐
mand-line macros that are expanded before the external command is executed.
The pipe(8) daemon updates queue files and marks recipients as finished, or it informs the queue manager that
delivery should be tried again at a later time. Delivery status reports are sent to the bounce(8), defer(8) or
trace(8) daemon as appropriate.
SINGLE-RECIPIENT DELIVERY
Some destinations cannot handle more than one recipient per delivery request. Examples are pagers or fax
machines. In addition, multi-recipient delivery is undesirable when prepending a Delivered-to: or X-Original-
To: message header.
To prevent Postfix from sending multiple recipients per delivery request, specify
transport_destination_recipient_limit = 1
in the Postfix main.cf file, where transport is the name in the first column of the Postfix master.cf entry
for the pipe-based delivery transport.
COMMAND ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX
The external command attributes are given in the master.cf file at the end of a service definition. The syn‐
tax is as follows:
chroot=pathname (optional)
Change the process root directory and working directory to the named directory. This happens before
switching to the privileges specified with the user attribute, and before executing the optional direc‐
tory=pathname directive. Delivery is deferred in case of failure.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.3.
directory=pathname (optional)
Change to the named directory before executing the external command. The directory must be accessible
for the user specified with the user attribute (see below). The default working directory is
$queue_directory. Delivery is deferred in case of failure.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.2.
eol=string (optional, default: \n)
The output record delimiter. Typically one would use either \r\n or \n. The usual C-style backslash
escape sequences are recognized: \a \b \f \n \r \t \v \ddd (up to three octal digits) and \\.
flags=BDFORXhqu.> (optional)
Optional message processing flags. By default, a message is copied unchanged.
B Append a blank line at the end of each message. This is required by some mail user agents that
recognize "From " lines only when preceded by a blank line.
for example, UUCP software.
O Prepend an "X-Original-To: recipient" message header with the recipient address as given to
Postfix. Note: for this to work, the transport_destination_recipient_limit must be 1 (see SIN‐
GLE-RECIPIENT DELIVERY above for details).
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.0.
R Prepend a Return-Path: message header with the envelope sender address.
X Indicate that the external command performs final delivery. This flag affects the status
reported in "success" DSN (delivery status notification) messages, and changes it from "relayed"
into "delivered".
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.5.
h Fold the command-line $original_recipient and $recipient address domain part (text to the right
of the right-most @ character) to lower case; fold the entire command-line $domain and $nexthop
host or domain information to lower case. This is recommended for delivery via UUCP.
q Quote white space and other special characters in the command-line $sender, $original_recipient
and $recipient address localparts (text to the left of the right-most @ character), according to
an 8-bit transparent version of RFC 822. This is recommended for delivery via UUCP or BSMTP.
The result is compatible with the address parsing of command-line recipients by the Postfix
sendmail(1) mail submission command.
The q flag affects only entire addresses, not the partial address information from the $user,
$extension or $mailbox command-line macros.
u Fold the command-line $original_recipient and $recipient address localpart (text to the left of
the right-most @ character) to lower case. This is recommended for delivery via UUCP.
. Prepend "." to lines starting with ".". This is needed by, for example, BSMTP software.
> Prepend ">" to lines starting with "From ". This is expected by, for example, UUCP software.
null_sender=replacement (default: MAILER-DAEMON)
Replace the null sender address (typically used for delivery status notifications) with the specified
text when expanding the $sender command-line macro, and when generating a From_ or Return-Path: message
header.
If the null sender replacement text is a non-empty string then it is affected by the q flag for address
quoting in command-line arguments.
The null sender replacement text may be empty; this form is recommended for content filters that feed
mail back into Postfix. The empty sender address is not affected by the q flag for address quoting in
command-line arguments.
Caution: a null sender address is easily mis-parsed by naive software. For example, when the pipe(8)
daemon executes a command such as:
Wrong: command -f$sender -- $recipient
user=username:groupname
Execute the external command with the user ID and group ID of the specified username. The software
refuses to execute commands with root privileges, or with the privileges of the mail system owner. If
groupname is specified, the corresponding group ID is used instead of the group ID of username.
argv=command... (required)
The command to be executed. This must be specified as the last command attribute. The command is exe‐
cuted directly, i.e. without interpretation of shell meta characters by a shell command interpreter.
In the command argument vector, the following macros are recognized and replaced with corresponding
information from the Postfix queue manager delivery request.
In addition to the form ${name}, the forms $name and $(name) are also recognized. Specify $$ where a
single $ is wanted.
${client_address}
This macro expands to the remote client network address.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.2.
${client_helo}
This macro expands to the remote client HELO command parameter.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.2.
${client_hostname}
This macro expands to the remote client hostname.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.2.
${client_port}
This macro expands to the remote client TCP port number.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.5.
${client_protocol}
This macro expands to the remote client protocol.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.2.
${domain}
This macro expands to the domain portion of the recipient address. For example, with an address
user+foo@domain the domain is domain.
This information is modified by the h flag for case folding.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.5.
${extension}
This macro expands to the extension part of a recipient address. For example, with an address
user+foo@domain the extension is foo.
A command-line argument that contains ${extension} expands into as many command-line arguments
as there are recipients.
${nexthop}
This macro expands to the next-hop hostname.
This information is modified by the h flag for case folding.
${original_recipient}
This macro expands to the complete recipient address before any address rewriting or aliasing.
A command-line argument that contains ${original_recipient} expands to as many command-line
arguments as there are recipients.
This information is modified by the hqu flags for quoting and case folding.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.5.
${recipient}
This macro expands to the complete recipient address.
A command-line argument that contains ${recipient} expands to as many command-line arguments as
there are recipients.
This information is modified by the hqu flags for quoting and case folding.
${sasl_method}
This macro expands to the name of the SASL authentication mechanism in the AUTH command when the
Postfix SMTP server received the message.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.2.
${sasl_sender}
This macro expands to the SASL sender name (i.e. the original submitter as per RFC 4954) in the
MAIL FROM command when the Postfix SMTP server received the message.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.2.
${sasl_username}
This macro expands to the SASL user name in the AUTH command when the Postfix SMTP server
received the message.
This feature is available as of Postfix 2.2.
${sender}
This macro expands to the envelope sender address. By default, the null sender address expands
to MAILER-DAEMON; this can be changed with the null_sender attribute, as described above.
This information is modified by the q flag for quoting.
${size}
This macro expands to Postfix's idea of the message size, which is an approximation of the size
of the message as delivered.
${user}
This macro expands to the username part of a recipient address. For example, with an address
user+foo@domain the username part is user.
In the case of a non-zero exit status, a limited amount of command output is reported in an delivery status
notification. When the output begins with a 4.X.X or 5.X.X enhanced status code, the status code takes prece‐
dence over the non-zero exit status (Postfix version 2.3 and later).
Problems and transactions are logged to syslogd(8). Corrupted message files are marked so that the queue man‐
ager can move them to the corrupt queue for further inspection.
SECURITY
This program needs a dual personality 1) to access the private Postfix queue and IPC mechanisms, and 2) to
execute external commands as the specified user. It is therefore security sensitive.
CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
Changes to main.cf are picked up automatically as pipe(8) processes run for only a limited amount of time. Use
the command "postfix reload" to speed up a change.
The text below provides only a parameter summary. See postconf(5) for more details including examples.
RESOURCE AND RATE CONTROLS
In the text below, transport is the first field in a master.cf entry.
transport_destination_concurrency_limit ($default_destination_concurrency_limit)
Limit the number of parallel deliveries to the same destination, for delivery via the named transport.
The limit is enforced by the Postfix queue manager.
transport_destination_recipient_limit ($default_destination_recipient_limit)
Limit the number of recipients per message delivery, for delivery via the named transport. The limit
is enforced by the Postfix queue manager.
transport_time_limit ($command_time_limit)
Limit the time for delivery to external command, for delivery via the named transport. The limit is
enforced by the pipe delivery agent.
Postfix 2.4 and later support a suffix that specifies the time unit: s (seconds), m (minutes), h
(hours), d (days), w (weeks). The default time unit is seconds.
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.
delay_logging_resolution_limit (2)
The maximal number of digits after the decimal point when logging sub-second delay values.
export_environment (see 'postconf -d' output)
The list of environment variables that a Postfix process will export to non-Postfix processes.
ipc_timeout (3600s)
The time limit for sending or receiving information over an internal communication channel.
mail_owner (postfix)
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.
recipient_delimiter (empty)
The separator between user names and address extensions (user+foo).
syslog_facility (mail)
The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output)
The mail system name that is prepended to the process name in syslog records, so that "smtpd" becomes,
for example, "postfix/smtpd".
SEE ALSO
qmgr(8), queue manager
bounce(8), delivery status reports
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
PIPE(8)
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