1

Topic: POSTFIX shows Active: active (exited) but email working

==== REQUIRED BASIC INFO OF YOUR IREDMAIL SERVER ====
- iRedMail version (check /etc/iredmail-release): 0.9.9
- Deployed with iRedMail Easy or the downloadable installer? Downloadable
- Linux/BSD distribution name and version: Ubuntu 18.04
- Store mail accounts in which backend (LDAP/MySQL/PGSQL):  MySQL
- Web server (Apache or Nginx): Nginx
- Manage mail accounts with iRedAdmin-Pro? iRedAdmin
- [IMPORTANT] Related original log or error message is required if you're experiencing an issue.
====

Hi

When I do "service nginx/dovecot/postfix status", nginx and dovecot shows "Active: active (running)" and
postfix shows "Active: active (exited)". But postfix is working as I can send and receive emails.

Is this normal for POSTFIX to show "Active: active (exited)" and working?

Awaiting someone's feedback/reply,

Mathew

----

Spider Email Archiver: On-Premises, lightweight email archiving software developed by iRedMail team. Supports Amazon S3 compatible storage and custom branding.

2

Re: POSTFIX shows Active: active (exited) but email working

Does restarting Postfix service fix that?

3

Re: POSTFIX shows Active: active (exited) but email working

Hi Zhang,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I did the below and it is same.

- service postfix restart
- postfix reload
- systemctl reload postfix
- systemctl stop postfix and systemctl start postfix
- /etc/init.d/postfix restart
- postfix status shows  - "postfix/postfix-script: the Postfix mail system is running: PID: 187"

And finally rebooted the server and it is still shows same as below and email send/receive is working well

● postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/postfix.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (exited) since Tue 2019-03-26 21:36:33 AEDT; 8min ago
  Process: 1882 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 1882 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Mar 26 21:36:33 mail systemd[1]: Starting Postfix Mail Transport Agent...
Mar 26 21:36:33 mail systemd[1]: Started Postfix Mail Transport Agent.

Any idea?

Regards,

Mathew

ZhangHuangbin wrote:

Does restarting Postfix service fix that?

4

Re: POSTFIX shows Active: active (exited) but email working

Hello Mathew,
Could you try this command?
systemctl status postfix*


Thanks

Regards

5

Re: POSTFIX shows Active: active (exited) but email working

Hi Lex,

Thanks. I restarted it checked again, see below;

It shows  "Active: active (exited)" and also "Active: active (running)" under an instance.

I do not get that or not seen before.

Is this normal to have an instance running?

If I do "service postfix* status", it shows the same.

root@mail:~# systemctl status postfix*
● postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/postfix.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (exited) since Wed 2019-03-27 13:35:59 AEDT; 2min 19s ago
  Process: 896 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 896 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Mar 27 13:35:59 mail systemd[1]: Starting Postfix Mail Transport Agent...
Mar 27 13:35:59 mail systemd[1]: Started Postfix Mail Transport Agent.

● postfix@-.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent (instance -)
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/postfix@.service; indirect; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-03-27 13:35:59 AEDT; 2min 19s ago
     Docs: man:postfix(1)
  Process: 32460 ExecStop=/usr/sbin/postmulti -i - -p stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 619 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/postmulti -i - -p start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 32470 ExecStartPre=/usr/lib/postfix/configure-instance.sh - (code=exited, status=0/SUCCES
    Tasks: 11 (limit: 2853)
   CGroup: /system.slice/system-postfix.slice/postfix@-.service
           ├─895 /usr/lib/postfix/sbin/master -w
           ├─901 pickup -l -t unix -u
           ├─902 qmgr -l -t unix -u
           ├─909 proxymap -t unix -u
           ├─914 showq -t unix -u
           ├─977 postscreen -l -n mail -t inet -u -c
           ├─978 dnsblog -z -t unix -u -c
           ├─979 dnsblog -z -t unix -u -c
           ├─981 maild -t pass -u -c -o stress=
           ├─982 tlsmgr -l -t unix -u
           └─983 anvil -l -t unix -u

Mar 27 13:35:56 mail systemd[1]: Stopped Postfix Mail Transport Agent (instance -).
Mar 27 13:35:56 mail systemd[1]: Starting Postfix Mail Transport Agent (instance -)...
Mar 27 13:35:59 mail postfix/postfix-script[893]: starting the Postfix mail system
Mar 27 13:35:59 mail postfix/master[895]: daemon started -- version 3.3.0, configuration /etc/postfi
Mar 27 13:35:59 mail systemd[1]: Started Postfix Mail Transport Agent (instance -).
Mar 27 13:37:42 mail postfix/postscreen[977]: CONNECT from [192.168.1.8]:64582 to [192.168.1.20]:25
Mar 27 13:37:42 mail postfix/postscreen[977]: PASS OLD [192.168.1.8]:64582
Mar 27 13:37:42 mail postfix/maild[981]: connect from _gateway[192.168.1.8]
Mar 27 13:37:43 mail postfix/maild[981]: lost connection after AUTH from _gateway[192.168.1.8]
Mar 27 13:37:43 mail postfix/maild[981]: disconnect from _gateway[192.168.1.8] ehlo=1 auth=0/1 comma
lines 9-40/40 (END)

Mathew

6

Re: POSTFIX shows Active: active (exited) but email working

Looks fine to me if the postfix service is actually working well.

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Re: POSTFIX shows Active: active (exited) but email working

Hello Mathew,
Everything is OK… (Zhang is OK with me)
My server log are the same!
This is a bug with DEBIAN 9.
Have a look to this issue
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … =877992#10
For me with this issue everything is working well.
Let me know if you'll find something else.
Regards

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Re: POSTFIX shows Active: active (exited) but email working

Hi Zhang and Lex,

Thanks. Glad that it is working, except for the bug.

In fact, I saw the below link but I did not understand it properly as it was talking about an upgrade and I understood now that it is related to current DEBIAN 9 bug which I guess, is in Ubuntu 18.04.

I noticed email send/receive was working and only puzzled with this oddly reported status. Thanks again for the support.

Lex wrote:

Hello Mathew,
Everything is OK… (Zhang is OK with me)
My server log are the same!
This is a bug with DEBIAN 9.
Have a look to this issue
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … =877992#10
For me with this issue everything is working well.
Let me know if you'll find something else.
Regards

Mathew