This check monitors the size of all your Postfix queues.

The Postfix check is included in the Datadog Agent package, so you don't need to install anything else on your Postfix servers.

This check can be configured to use the find command which requires granting the dd-agent user sudo access to get a count of messages in the incoming, active, and deferred mail queues.

Optionally, you can configure the agent to use a built in postqueue -p command to get a count of messages in the active, hold, and deferred mail queues. postqueue is exectued with set-group ID privileges without the need for sudo.

WARNING: Using postqueue to monitor the mail queues will not report a count of messages for the incoming queue.

Edit the file postfix.d/conf.yaml, in the conf.d/ folder at the root of your Agent's configuration directory. See the sample postfix.d/conf.yaml for all available configuration options:

init_config:
  postfix_user: postfix

instances:
  # add one instance for each postfix service you want to track
  - directory: /var/spool/postfix
    queues:
      - incoming
      - active
      - deferred
#   tags:
#     - optional_tag1
#     - optional_tag2

For each mail queue in queues, the Agent forks a find on its directory. It uses sudo to do this with the privileges of the Postfix user, so you must add the following lines to /etc/sudoers for the Agent's user, dd-agent, assuming Postfix runs as postfix:

dd-agent ALL=(postfix) NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/find /var/spool/postfix/incoming -type f
dd-agent ALL=(postfix) NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/find /var/spool/postfix/active -type f
dd-agent ALL=(postfix) NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/find /var/spool/postfix/deferred -type f

Edit the postfix.d/conf.yaml file, in the conf.d/ folder at the root of your Agent's configuration directory:

init_config:
  postqueue: true

instances:
  # The config_directory option only applies when `postqueue: true`.
  # The config_directory is the location of the Postfix configuration directory
  # where main.cf lives.
  - config_directory: /etc/postfix
#   tags:
#     - optional_tag
#     - optional_tag0

For each config_directory in instances, the Agent forks a postqueue -c for the Postfix configuration directory.

Postfix has internal access controls that limit activities on the mail queue. By default, Postfix allows anyone to view the queue. On production systems where the Postfix installation may be configured with stricter access controls, you may need to grant the dd-agent user access to view the mail queue.

postconf -e "authorized_mailq_users = dd-agent"

http://www.postfix.org/postqueue.1.html

authorized_mailq_users (static:anyone)

List of users who are authorized to view the queue.

Restart the Agent to start sending Postfix metrics to Datadog.

Available for Agent >6.0

Postfix sends logs to the syslog daemon, which then writes logs to the file system.

The naming convention and log file destinations are configurable:

/etc/syslog.conf:
    mail.err                                    /dev/console
    mail.debug                                  /var/log/maillog

• Collecting logs is disabled by default in the Datadog Agent. Enable it in your datadog.yaml file:

  logs_enabled: true
  

• Add the following configuration block to your postfix.d/conf.yaml file. Change the path and service parameter values based on your environment. See the sample postfix.d/conf.yaml for all available configuration options.

  logs:
    - type: file
      path: /var/log/mail.log
      source: postfix
      service: myapp
  

• Restart the Agent.

Learn more about log collection in the log documentation

Run the Agent's status subcommand and look for postfix under the Checks section.

See metadata.csv for a list of metrics provided by this check.

The Postfix check does not include any events.

The Postfix check does not include any service checks.

Need help? Contact Datadog support.

• Monitor Postfix queue performance