postfix/postdrop: warning: uid=0: File too large

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NOTE added 2013-11-10: I think I found the cause. Read about it in this FreeBSD Forums post.
I’ve seen seeing the following in the mail log for my imap server.

Sep 27 00:00:00 imaps newsyslog[43463]: logfile turned over
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/pickup[48680]: 3E479796978: uid=0 from=<root>
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/cleanup[53346]: 3E479796978: message-id=<20130927030123.3E479796978@imaps.example.org>
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/qmgr[71070]: 3E479796978: from=<root@imaps.example.org>, size=1157, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/cleanup[53346]: 45C5C796979: message-id=<20130927030123.3E479796978@imaps.example.org>
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/local[53348]: 3E479796978: to=<root@imaps.example.org>, orig_to=<root>, relay=local, delay=0.05, delays=0.03/0.01/0/0.01, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (forwarded as 45C5C796979)
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/qmgr[71070]: 45C5C796979: from=<root@imaps.example.org>, size=1299, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/qmgr[71070]: 3E479796978: removed
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/postdrop[53313]: warning: uid=0: File too large
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/smtp[53349]: 45C5C796979: to=<dan@example.org>, orig_to=<root>, relay=tallboy.example.org[10.0.0.1]:25, delay=0.24, delays=0/0.01/0.2/0.03, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 8014C1C51B2D)
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/sendmail[53309]: fatal: root(0): message file too big
Sep 27 03:01:23 imaps postfix/qmgr[71070]: 45C5C796979: removed

The mail messages in question are the daily run and security run emails that go out from FreeBSD machines. They aren’t big. As shown above, you can see one was only 1157 bytes.

What is curious about this setup: the imap server runs in a jail. The relay mail server is on the jail host.

From what I can tell, this is definitely not an email which is too large. Here are the configuration items from the sending and from the receiving postfix servers.

# postconf | grep -i size
berkeley_db_create_buffer_size = 16777216
berkeley_db_read_buffer_size = 131072
body_checks_size_limit = 51200
bounce_size_limit = 50000
header_size_limit = 102400
mailbox_size_limit = 51200000
message_size_limit = 10240000
tcp_windowsize = 0

$ postconf | grep -i size
berkeley_db_create_buffer_size = 16777216
berkeley_db_read_buffer_size = 131072
body_checks_size_limit = 51200
bounce_size_limit = 50000
header_size_limit = 102400
mailbox_size_limit = 51200000
message_size_limit = 10240000
tcp_windowsize = 0

What do you think is the problem?

In a perhaps futile attempt to fix this, I upgraded the sending postfix to 2.10.1, the same version as the receiver.

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4 thoughts on “postfix/postdrop: warning: uid=0: File too large”

  1. Dan Langille

    Q: How much space is left on the disk?

    A: about 400G

    sending system:

    # df -h
Filesystem          Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/mirror/m0p2    453G    9.3G    408G     2%    /

    receiving system:

    $ df -h
Filesystem             Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/mirror/m0p2       453G    9.3G    408G     2%    /
devfs                  1.0k    1.0k      0B   100%    /dev
/usr/jails/basejail    453G    9.3G    408G     2%    /usr/jails/imaps/basejail
devfs                  1.0k    1.0k      0B   100%    /usr/jails/imaps/dev
fdescfs                1.0k    1.0k      0B   100%    /usr/jails/imaps/dev/fd
procfs                 4.0k    4.0k      0B   100%    /usr/jails/imaps/proc
devfs                  1.0k    1.0k      0B   100%    /var/named/dev
$
  2. Dan Langille

    Q: Does sending email via telnet work?

    A: Yes

    # telnet tallboy.example.org 25
Trying 10.0.0.1...
Connected to tallboy.example.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 tallboy.example.org ESMTP Postfix
helo imaps.example.org
250 tallboy.example.org
mail from: dan@example.org
250 2.1.0 Ok
rcpt to: dan@example.org
250 2.1.5 Ok
data
354 End data with .
testing
.
250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 80FBA1C51B13
quit
221 2.0.0 Bye
Connection closed by foreign host.

    And the logs:

    Sep 27 13:47:22 tallboy postfix/smtpd[32875]: 80FBA1C51B13: client=imaps.example.org[10.0.0.2]
Sep 27 13:47:26 tallboy postfix/cleanup[32930]: 80FBA1C51B13: message-id=<20130927134722.80FBA1C51B13@tallboy.example.org>
Sep 27 13:47:26 tallboy postfix/qmgr[23762]: 80FBA1C51B13: from=, size=352, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Sep 27 13:47:28 tallboy postfix/smtpd[32875]: disconnect from imaps.example.org[199.233.228.197]
Sep 27 13:47:29 tallboy postfix/smtp[32931]: 80FBA1C51B13: to=, relay=example.org.s9a1.psmtp.com[74.125.148.10]:25, delay=20, delays=17/0.01/0.33/2.3, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 Thanks)
Sep 27 13:47:29 tallboy postfix/qmgr[23762]: 80FBA1C51B13: removed

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