Postfix and Linux

Berkeley DB issues

Warning: if you can't compile Postfix because the file "db.h" isn't found, then you MUST install the Berkeley DB development package (package name: db???-devel-???) that comes with your Linux system. Only that package contains the files that correspond to the Berkeley DB version that is used by the system library routines.

DO NOT download some Berkeley DB version from the network. Every Postfix program will dump core when it is built with a different Berkeley DB version than the version that is used by the system library routines. See the DB_README file for further information.

Procmail issues

On RedHat Linux 7.1 and later procmail no longer has permission to write the mail spool directory. Workaround: chmod 1777 /var/spool/mail.

Syslogd performance

LINUX syslogd uses synchronous writes by default. Because of this, syslogd can actually use more system resources than Postfix. To avoid such badness, disable synchronous mail logfile writes by editing /etc/syslog.conf and by prepending a - to the logfile name:

/etc/syslog.conf:
    mail.*                          -/var/log/mail.log

Send a "kill -HUP" to the syslogd to make the change effective.