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PIPE(8)                                                                                              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 command-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 man-ager manager
       ager 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 syntax 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 directory=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  dig-its) digits)
              its) 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.

              D      Prepend a "Delivered-To: recipient" message header with the envelope recipient address.
                     Note:  for  this to work, the transport_destination_recipient_limit must be 1 (see SIN-GLE-RECIPIENT SINGLE-RECIPIENT
                     GLE-RECIPIENT DELIVERY above for details).

                     The D flag also enforces loop detection (Postfix 2.5 and later): if a  message  already
                     contains  a  Delivered-To:  header with the same recipient address, then the message is
                     returned as undeliverable. The address comparison is case insensitive.

                     This feature is available as of Postfix 2.0.

              F      Prepend a "From sender time_stamp" envelope header to the  message  content.   This  is
                     expected by, 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 SINGLE-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 sta-tus status
                     tus 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,  $origi-nal_recipient $original_recipient
                     nal_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:

                  command -f$sender -- $recipient (bad)

              the  command will mis-parse the -f option value when the sender address is a null string.  For
              correct parsing, specify $sender as an argument by itself:

                  command -f $sender -- $recipient (good)

              This feature is available as of Postfix 2.3.

       size=size_limit (optional)
              Don't deliver messages that exceed this size limit (in  bytes);  return  them  to  the  sender
              instead.

       user=username (required)

       user=username:groupname
              Execute  the external command with the rights 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 user-name. username.
              name.

       argv=command... (required)
              The command to be executed. This must be specified as the last command attribute.  The command
              is  executed 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  corre-sponding corresponding
              sponding 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 is available in Postfix 2.2 and later.

              ${client_helo}
                     This macro expands to the remote client HELO command parameter.

                     This is available in Postfix 2.2 and later.

              ${client_hostname}
                     This macro expands to the remote client hostname.

                     This is available in Postfix 2.2 and later.

              ${client_port}
                     This macro expands to the remote client TCP port number.

                     This is available in Postfix 2.5 and later.

              ${client_protocol}
                     This macro expands to the remote client protocol.

                     This is available in Postfix 2.2 and later.

              ${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 is available in Postfix 2.5 and later.

              ${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.

                     This information is modified by the u flag for case folding.

              ${mailbox}
                     This  macro  expands  to  the complete local part of a recipient address.  For example,
                     with an address user+foo@domain the mailbox is user+foo.

                     A command-line argument that contains ${mailbox} expands to as many command-line  argu-ments arguments
                     ments as there are recipients.

                     This information is modified by the u flag for case folding.

              ${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 commandline
                     line arguments as there are recipients.

                     This information is modified by the hqu flags for quoting and case folding.

                     This feature is available in Postfix 2.5 and later.

              ${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 SASL authentication mechanism used during  the  reception  of
                     the  message.  An  empty string is passed if the message has been received without SASL
                     authentication.

                     This is available in Postfix 2.2 and later.

              ${sasl_sender}
                     This macro expands to the SASL sender name (i.e. the  original  submitter  as  per  RFC
                     4954) used during the reception of the message.

                     This is available in Postfix 2.2 and later.

              ${sasl_username}
                     This  macro  expands to the SASL user name used during the reception of the message. An
                     empty string is passed if the message has been received without SASL authentication.

                     This is available in Postfix 2.2 and later.

              ${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.

                     A command-line argument that contains ${user} expands into as many  command-line  argu-ments arguments
                     ments as there are recipients.

                     This information is modified by the u flag for case folding.

STANDARDS
       RFC 3463 (Enhanced status codes)

DIAGNOSTICS
       Command  exit status codes are expected to follow the conventions defined in <sysexits.h>.  Exit sta-tus status
       tus 0 means normal successful completion.

       Postfix version 2.3 and later support RFC 3463-style enhanced status codes.  If a command  terminates
       with  a non-zero exit status, and the command output begins with an enhanced status code, this status
       code takes precedence over the non-zero exit status.

       Problems and transactions are logged to syslogd(8).  Corrupted message files are marked so  that  the
       queue manager 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 exam-ples. examples.
       ples.

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)
              The UNIX system account that owns the Postfix queue and most Postfix daemon processes.

       max_idle (100s)
              The maximum amount of time that an idle Postfix daemon process waits for an  incoming  connec-tion connection
              tion 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.

       recipient_delimiter (empty)
              The separator between user names and address extensions (user+foo).

       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
       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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