We have a Postfix server here that is servicing about 70-80 active users. We have a single alias for all users in the system that we manage manually in /etc/aliases. Occasionally, email sent to this all users alias is deferred due to a number of reasons, some examples are given below:
Jan 25 12:02:15 mailserver postfix/local[6733]: 78D4619014D:
to=, relay=local, delay=1956, delays=1936/0.01/0/20,
dsn=4.2.0, status=deferred (cannot update mailbox
/var/spool/mail/user1 for user user1. unable to create lock file
/var/spool/mail/user1.lock: File exists)Jan 25 13:42:14 mailserver postfix/local[10757]: 78D4619014D:
to=, relay=local, delay=7954, delays=7936/0/0/19,
dsn=4.2.0, status=deferred (cannot update mailbox
/var/spool/mail/user2 for user user2. unable to lock for exclusive
access: Resource temporarily unavailable)
Once the message is deferred it's redelivered to every person the alias sends mail to, even if they've already gotten a copy. So occasionally a message will make the rounds 3 or 4 times before it finally gets to every user successfully.
Has anyone had experience with this problem and what did you do to fix it?
Best Answer
you can't have parallel delivery with mbox format.
If the lock problem persist, then you have filesystem error or hard drive problem.