The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Mail and Queuegraph

MAIL HELP

Article from Issue 55/2005
Author(s):

Worms, mail bombs, and users who send multiple megabyte Powerpoint files across the wire give Postfix administrators plenty of reasons to view their charges with a critical eye from time to time.

Mailgraph has been giving me useful information for a long while now [1]. It is time to turn the spotlight on this visualization tool for Postfix logfiles and to introduce the related Queuegraph project. Mailgraph [2] is a small footprint daemon that continuously reads the Postfix logfile and shovels the data it gathers into a round robin database (RRD). The front-end is a CGI script that generates a graph based on the RRD data. The program requires the ubiquitous Perl interpreter, RRDTool [3] for the database, and the File::Tail Perl module, which you can obtain from the CPAN archive. The heart of Mailgraph is a Perl script called mailgraph.pl; the daemon I referred to earlier. You can launch the daemon manually, but it makes more sense to add the init script provided by the distribution to run the daemon when you boot your machine. I use the following command to launch Mailgraph:

Buy this article as PDF

Download Article PDF now with Express Checkout
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subscriptions
Digital Subscriptions

Related content

  • Charly's Column

    A partly overloaded DNS server can slow down all the workstations on the network. Dnsgraph is an early warning system that gives administrators a graph of critical values. Your Dnsgraph charts will help you keep your systems serving names.

    more »
  • Brave GNU World

    This column looks into projects and current affairs in the world of free software from the perspective of the GNU Project and the FSF. In this issue, we focus on AmavisdNew, a new daemon that operates as a spam filter.

    more »
  • Charly's Column

    The Postfix Policyd plugin fights spam using techniques such as greylisting, source detection, volume measurements, blacklisting, and HELO rotation detection.

    more »
  • Charly’s Column: SendmailAnalyzer

    During the ongoing battle against spam, admins should inspect their troop’s battle lines from time to time. If you don’t relish the thought of counting the dinnerware, you can use the services of a logfile inspector like SendmailAnalyzer, which works surprisingly well with Postfix and the like.

    more »
  • Charly's Column: SendmailAnalyzer

    During the ongoing battle against spam, admins should inspect their troop's battle lines from time to time. If you don't relish the thought of counting the dinnerware, you can use the services of a logfile inspector like SendmailAnalyzer, which works surprisingly well with Postfix and the like.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Desktop Events Hardware Linux Mobile Programming Security Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source