[Postfixbuch-users] sendmail/postdrop: mail stored in wrong maildrop directory

[Christoph Lechner]

Hi all,

(running Postfix 2.3.8 from Debian old-stable)

for a Linux HA high availability setup, I configured a Postfix
null-client (in a configuration path differing from the default). The
null-client is intended on to run on the backup node only, while the
master node runs the Postfix server doing all the work.

My main idea behind running a null-client on the backup node was to
enable sending mail from that machine via the 'sendmail' command. An
example of mails I want to be sent from the backup node is when the
status of the RAID system changes.

The null-client setup is running just fine; when I telnet on that
machine to localhost port 25, I can deliver mail anywhere I want.

But when I invoke 'sendmail' on the command line, nothing happens.
Running grep showed that the mail is dropped in the 'maildrop' part of
the wrong maildrop directory.

I thought it would be a good idea to have an extra queue directory (set
via queue_directory in the config file) to avoid message loss. From the
documentation of postdrop it appears that one can only drop in maildrop
directories other than the default one if
* one adds the configuration path for that setup to
alternate_config_directories directive of the default main.cf
* and specifies a parameter on the sendmail command line.
The additional parameter is a problem, because I consider scripts
monitoring the RAID system to be mission-critical. So I don't want the
script to decide if the additional parameter has to be added or not.

Is it possible to make sendmail/postdrop place the mail in the right
maildrop directory (thus making the null-client pick-up the mail)
WITHOUT changing the scripts invoking sendmail?
Or is it just wrong to have two different queue directories for two
independed postfix setups (at the same time only one of them is active)?


kind regards
- Christoph