SHOWQ(8)

✨ SHOWQ ✨ (showq, section 8 of the system manager's manual, bestie 💅)

ok so real quick — this is the manual page for showq(8), and it's literally the girl who reads your mail queue out loud to you. let's get into it 💖

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🌸 NAME 🌸

showq — list the Postfix mail queue. that's it. that's the whole job. she's a lister. an icon. 👑

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

showq [generic Postfix daemon options]

short, sweet, no drama. just vibes and daemon options ✨

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the showq(8) daemon reports the Postfix mail queue status. that's the whole personality. 💁♀️

the output? it's meant to be formatted by the postqueue(1) command, because showq(8) emulates the Sendmail mailq command. so like, she does the talking but postqueue(1) does the glow-up. 💅

and here's the tea ☕ — the showq(8) daemon can also be run in stand-alone mode by the superuser. when does that matter? when you're emulating the mailq command while the Postfix mail system is down. yes bestie, she still shows up even when the party's over. that's main character energy fr fr 🌟

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🔒 SECURITY 🔒

ok so this part is the serious part, listen up 🫶

the showq(8) daemon can run in a chroot jail at fixed low privilege, and it takes no input from the client. good boundaries, we love to see it. 🎀

BUT — its service port is accessible to local untrusted users, so the service can be susceptible to denial of service attacks. so like, she's locked down but her doorbell is right there on the porch, y'know? lowkey a risk. 😭

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📜 STANDARDS 📜

None. literally none. the showq(8) daemon does not interact with the outside world. she's a homebody. she doesn't go outside. she doesn't know what "outside" is. 🏠✨

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🩺 DIAGNOSTICS 🩺

problems and transactions get logged to syslogd(8) or postlogd(8). so if something's messy, it goes in the diary. 📓💀

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⚙️ CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS ⚙️

changes to main.cf are picked up automatically, because showq(8) processes only run for a limited amount of time anyway. so she's not out here holding onto stale settings, she's fresh every time. ✨

want to speed up a change? run the command postfix reload. that's the fast pass. 🏃♀️💨

the text below is only a parameter summary — see postconf(5) for more details including examples. (yes, more. there's always more. she's thorough. 👑)

• config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output) — the default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf configuration files. 🗂️
• daemon_timeout (18000s) — how much time a Postfix daemon process may take to handle a request before it is terminated by a built-in watchdog timer. ⏰ (that watchdog does NOT play.)
• duplicate_filter_limit (1000) — the maximal number of addresses remembered by the address duplicate filter for aliases(5) or virtual(5) alias expansion, or for showq(8) queue displays. 🧠
• empty_address_recipient (MAILER-DAEMON) — the recipient of mail addressed to the null address. 📭
• ipc_timeout (3600s) — the time limit for sending or receiving information over an internal communication channel. 📡
• max_idle (100s) — the maximum amount of time that an idle Postfix daemon process waits for an incoming connection before terminating voluntarily. 😴 (she's not gonna wait around forever, bestie.)
• max_use (100) — the maximal number of incoming connections that a Postfix daemon process will service before terminating voluntarily. 🔢
• process_id (read-only) — the process ID of a Postfix command or daemon process. 🆔
• process_name (read-only) — the process name of a Postfix command or daemon process. 🏷️
• queue_directory (see 'postconf -d' output) — the location of the Postfix top-level queue directory. 📁
• syslog_facility (mail) — the syslog facility of Postfix logging. 📝
• syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output) — a prefix that is prepended to the process name in syslog records, so that, for example, "smtpd" becomes "prefix/smtpd". 🏷️✨

available in Postfix version 2.9 and later:

• enable_long_queue_ids (no) — enable long, non-repeating, queue IDs (queue file names). 🔥

available in Postfix 3.3 and later:

• service_name (read-only) — the master.cf service name of a Postfix daemon process. 🎫

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📂 FILES 📂

• /var/spool/postfix, queue directories 📬

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• pickup(8), local mail pickup service
• cleanup(8), canonicalize and enqueue mail
• qmgr(8), queue manager
• postconf(5), configuration parameters
• master(8), process manager
• postlogd(8), Postfix logging
• syslogd(8), system logging

like a whole friend group honestly. the squad. 🫶🌈

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📄 LICENSE 📄

the Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software. periodt. ✋

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💖 AUTHOR(S) 💖

Wietse Venema IBM T.J. Watson Research P.O. Box 704 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA

Wietse Venema Google, Inc. 111 8th Avenue New York, NY 10011, USA

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and that's the whole page bestie!! this came from the System Manager's Manual (that's the manual name, section 8, iykyk), and it's the SHOWQ(8) page — no cap, go read your queue 🌸💅✨