postfix hanging at "rcpt to" stage of smtp conversation

Hi,

My postfix started hanging last night at about 22.45 GMT, with the
following errors;

Nov 7 10:45:19 vs802 postfix/cleanup[7223]: fatal: fstat flow pipe
write descriptor: Value too large for defined data type
Nov 7 10:45:20 vs802 postfix/smtpd[7119]: warning: premature
end-of-input on public/cleanup socket while reading input attri
bute name
Nov 7 10:45:20 vs802 postfix/smtpd[7119]: fatal: unable to connect to
the public cleanup service
Nov 7 10:45:20 vs802 postfix/master[14334]: warning: process
/usr/libexec/postfix/cleanup pid 7223 exit status 1
Nov 7 10:45:20 vs802 postfix/master[14334]: warning:
/usr/libexec/postfix/cleanup: bad command startup -- throttling
Nov 7 10:45:21 vs802 postfix/master[14334]: warning: process
/usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd pid 7119 exit status 1
Nov 7 10:45:21 vs802 postfix/master[14334]: warning:
/usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling

It seems to restart ok;
[root@vs802 log]# service postfix restart
Shutting down postfix: [ OK ]
Starting postfix: [ OK ]

However I can see that Yum has been updating packages, so I can't be
sure to say what has changed recently. The box is fedora core 5

Thanks,

Tom H

My first guess would be disk drive corruption, or some
Postfix file is corrupted.


> However I can see that Yum has been updating packages, so I can't be
> sure to say what has changed recently. The box is fedora core 5

I think there should be history of the yum changes in /var/log/yum.log.

I'd probably try rebooting and running a file system check. And if it still
acts weird, uninstall and reinstall the Postfix package. (After saving a copy
of the config files of course).

--
Greg

Greg Hackney wrote:

> I'd probably try rebooting and running a file system check. And if it still
> acts weird, uninstall and reinstall the Postfix package. (After saving a copy
> of the config files of course).

thanks, I tried these actions and after reinstalling my main.cf and
master.cf the error was appearing again, so from a clean install I
added my directives one-by-one.

The result was that I could add to main.cf;
virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual

and use a empty virtual file, but as soon as I add any entries to the
virtual file;
"@ecnow.co.uk tom.hodder
scriptsupport.co.uk this-text-is-ignored"

and use makemap eg;
#postmap virtual
#postfix reload

Then when I try and send smtp mail to the user, I get the error in the
logs;
Nov 7 15:17:52 vs802 postfix/cleanup[27802]: fatal: fstat flow pipe
write descriptor: Value too large for defined data type
Nov 7 15:17:53 vs802 postfix/smtpd[25923]: warning: premature
end-of-input on public/cleanup socket while reading input attribute
name
Nov 7 15:17:53 vs802 postfix/smtpd[25923]: fatal: unable to connect to
the public cleanup service
Nov 7 15:17:53 vs802 postfix/master[20508]: warning: process
/usr/libexec/postfix/cleanup pid 27802 exit status 1
Nov 7 15:17:53 vs802 postfix/master[20508]: warning:
/usr/libexec/postfix/cleanup: bad command startup -- throttling
Nov 7 15:17:54 vs802 postfix/master[20508]: warning: process
/usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd pid 25923 exit status 1
Nov 7 15:17:54 vs802 postfix/master[20508]: warning:
/usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling

any idea what I am doing wrong here?

Thanks,

tom h

thebad1 wrote:


> virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual
> and use a empty virtual file, but as soon as I add any entries to the
> virtual file;

> "@ecnow.co.uk tom.hodder
> scriptsupport.co.uk this-text-is-ignored"


I don't understand; What are those double quotes?
And what is: this-text-is-ignored ?


--
Greg

Greg Hackney wrote:
> thebad1 wrote:
> > "@ecnow.co.uk tom.hodder
> > scriptsupport.co.uk this-text-is-ignored"
>
>
> I don't understand; What are those double quotes?
> And what is: this-text-is-ignored ?

That was just me failing to cut and paste properly, my basic virtual
file just contains;

ecnow.co.uk anything
tom@ecnow.co.uk tom.hodder

as per the virtual_alias_maps directive documentation, I did have a lot
in there, but I have cut down to just one entry to get it working
again.

Tom

in desperation, I am now in the code, and have strace running on my
smtpd process in master.cf - having seen some suggestions on the web;

The error is being thrown here - postfix-2.3.4\src\master\mail_flow.c
line 86;
/*
* Silence some wild claims.
*/
if (fstat(MASTER_FLOW_WRITE, &st) < 0){
msg_fatal("fstat flow pipe write descriptor: %m");
}

where MASTER_FLOW_WRITE is;
/*
* File descriptors inherited from the master process. The flow
control pipe
* is read by receive processes and is written to by send processes.
If
* receive processes get too far ahead they will pause for a brief
moment.
*/
#define MASTER_FLOW_READ 3
#define MASTER_FLOW_WRITE 4

in the strace output, I cannot see where the cleanup fstat call maps
onto the system calls, (there are calls to fstat64, but none of them
fail)

I think this might be some peculular problem associated with running
postfix in a vserver, though it has been running fine for many months,
having had no problem.

Tom

thebad1 wrote:

> The error is being thrown here - postfix-2.3.4\src\master\mail_flow.c
> line 86;
> /*
> * Silence some wild claims.
> */
> if (fstat(MASTER_FLOW_WRITE, &st) < 0){
> msg_fatal("fstat flow pipe write descriptor: %m");


Are you running Debian by chance? If so:

http://groups.google.com/group/list....79dea11eaeb4a3

--
Greg

>
> Are you running Debian by chance? If so:
> http://groups.google.com/group/list....79dea11eaeb4a3
>

No, fedora core 6, and I have tried this with a fedora core 5 as well.

Tom