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Topic: [SOLVED] postfix has bizarre default mailbox size (Read 619 times) previous topic - next topic
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[SOLVED] postfix has bizarre default mailbox size

Background: I am a new Artix user, and among the things I did was set up postfix (following my working postfix config on another Linux distro) to handle my email.  It took me quite a while to get it working, because the error message I was getting
    ... status=bounced (can't create user output file)
was not very informative, and the little I found searching the web indicated a permissions issue.

I realize the uninformative message is a postfix issue, and I'll submit something there.  But eventually I found out the problem was that the other distro uses a default mailbox size limit of 0 (presumably meaning unlimited), whereas the default on Artix is (wait for it...)
51200000

Now, in 1985, that would have been a reasonable limit.  But time has moved on, and mass storage devices have come down in price by many orders of magnitude, and the size of attachments shipped via email has correspondingly increased.

Given the vague error message postfix generates when one's mailbox is too big, would it not be useful to increase the mailbox size limit to something more in keeping with this millennium?

Finally, I realize that this may be an Arch issue, if the package is just taken straight from there.  But it isn't clear to me how I'd find that out.

Q1: is this an Arch or Artix issue?
Q2: if Artix, would the powers that be consider changing the default?

Thanks.

Re: postfix has bizarre default mailbox size

Reply #1 –
To follow up... the nice, helpful postfix people point out that the vague message is indirectly coming from procmail, which (apparently) has been instructed by postfix to obey the maximum file size issue, and returns a somewhat generic error exit code which postfix repeats in English. 

So while it won't be fixed by changing postfix, I would still suggest that Artix change the default maximum mailbox size to something (much) larger.

Re: postfix has bizarre default mailbox size

Reply #2 –
Is the mailbox size really a compile-time option? At least glancing at the PKGBUILD I do not see anything like that. I would think something like that would be in a conf file somewhere but I have no idea myself. If it's helpful at all, postfix is indeed an Artix package but procmail is from Arch.

Re: postfix has bizarre default mailbox size

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Dudemanguy – on
Is the mailbox size really a compile-time option? At least glancing at the PKGBUILD I do not see anything like that. I would think something like that would be in a conf file somewhere but I have no idea myself. If it's helpful at all, postfix is indeed an Artix package but procmail is from Arch.

It's a configuration option in,

Code: [Select]
/etc/postfix/main.cf.default

Code: [Select]
main.cf.default:mailbox_size_limit = 51200000
main.cf.default:virtual_mailbox_limit = 51200000

Re: postfix has bizarre default mailbox size

Reply #4 –
Hmm, it seems like the defaults are just from upstream in that case. Anyways, you should be able to just edit /etc/postfix/main.cf

Re: postfix has bizarre default mailbox size

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Dudemanguy – on
Hmm, it seems like the defaults are just from upstream in that case. Anyways, you should be able to just edit /etc/postfix/main.cf
Thanks for getting back.  Indeed, I can and have edited that, after I figured out what needed to be done.  What I'm still confused about is whether every other postfix user discovered this needed editing,  or whether no other people have "large" mailboxes, or whether hardly anyone uses postfix.