pmg-administration.adoc

   1 Administration
   2 ==============
   3
   4 The Administration GUI allows you to do common tasks
   5 such as updating software packages, managing quarantine, viewing service
   6 status, and managing mail queues. It also provides server statistics in
   7 order to verify server health.
   8
   9
  10 Server Administration
  11 ---------------------
  12
  13 Server status
  14 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  15
  16 [thumbnail="pmg-gui-server-status.png", big=1]
  17
  18 This page shows server statistics about CPU, memory, disk and network
  19 usage. You can select the displayed time span on the upper right.
  20
  21 Administrators can open a terminal window using the 'Console'
  22 button. It is also possible to trigger a server 'Restart' or
  23 'Shutdown'.
  24
  25
  26 Services
  27 ~~~~~~~~
  28
  29 [thumbnail="pmg-gui-service-status.png", big=1]
  30
  31 This panel lists all major services used for mail processing and
  32 cluster synchronization. If necessary, you can start, stop or restart
  33 them. The 'Syslog' button shows the system log filtered for the
  34 selected service.
  35
  36 Please note that {pmg} uses {systemd} to manage services, so you can
  37 also use the standard `systemctl` command line tool to manage or view
  38 service status, for example:
  39
  40 -----
  41 systemctl status postfix
  42 -----
  43
  44
  45 Updates
  46 ~~~~~~~
  47
  48 [thumbnail="pmg-gui-updates.png", big=1]
  49
  50 We release software updates on a regular basis, and it is recommended
  51 to always run the latest available version. This page shows the
  52 available updates, and administrators can run an upgrade by pressing
  53 the 'Upgrade' button.
  54
  55 See section xref:pmg_package_repositories[Package Repositories] for
  56 details abaout available package repositories.
  57
  58
  59 Syslog and Tasks
  60 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  61
  62 [thumbnail="pmg-gui-syslog.png", big=1]
  63
  64 The syslog page gives you a quick real-time log view. You can use the
  65 xref:pmg_tracking_center[Tracking Center] to search the logs.
  66
  67
  68 Quarantine
  69 ----------
  70
  71 Spam
  72 ~~~~
  73
  74 [thumbnail="pmg-gui-spam-quarantine.png", big=1]
  75
  76 This panel lets you inspect the mail quarantine. Emails can be safely
  77 previewed and if desired, delivered to the original user.
  78
  79 The email preview on the web interface is very secure as malicious
  80 code (attacking your operating system or email client) is removed by
  81 {pmg}.
  82
  83
  84 Virus
  85 ~~~~~
  86
  87 Allows administrators to inspect quarantined virus mails.
  88
  89
  90 Attachment
  91 ~~~~~~~~~~
  92
  93 Allows administrators to inspect quarantined mails and download their
  94 attachments or deliver/delete them.
  95
  96 NOTE: Use the options of the 'Remove attachment' action to control the Attachment Quarantine.
  97
  98
  99 [[pmg_userblackwhitelist]]
 100 User White- and Blacklist
 101 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 102
 103 This is mostly useful to debug or verify white- and blacklist user
 104 settings. The administrator should not change these values because
 105 users can manage this themselves.
 106
 107
 108 [[pmg_tracking_center]]
 109 Tracking Center
 110 ---------------
 111
 112 [thumbnail="pmg-gui-tracking-center.png", big=1]
 113
 114 Email processing is a complex task and involves several service
 115 daemons. Each daemon logs information to the syslog service. The
 116 problem is that a server analyzes many emails in parallel, so it is
 117 usually very hard to find all logs corresponding to a specific mail.
 118
 119 The Tracking Center simplifies the search for
 120 emails dramatically. We use highly optimized and safe Rust footnote:[A language
 121 empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.
 122 https://www.rust-lang.org/] code to search the available syslog data. This is
 123 very fast and powerful, and works for sites processing several million emails
 124 per day.
 125
 126 The result is a list of received mails, including the following data:
 127
 128 [cols="s,5d"]
 129 |====
 130 |Time | Timestamp of first found syslog entry.
 131 |From | Envelope 'From' address (the sender).
 132 |To   | The email receiver address.
 133 |Status | Delivery status.
 134 |Syslog | The corresponding syslog entries are shown if you double click such
 135 entry, or if you press the '+' button on the left.
 136 |====
 137
 138 You can specify filters, and most importantly you can set
 139 a 'Start' and 'End' time. By default the start time is set to one hour
 140 ago. If you still get too many entries, you can try to restrict
 141 the search to a specific sender or receiver address, or search for a
 142 specific text in the logs ('Filter' entry).
 143
 144 NOTE: Search is faster if you use a shorter time interval.
 145
 146 The 'Status' field summarizes what happened with an email. {pmg} is a
 147 mail proxy, meaning that the proxy receives mails from outside,
 148 processes them and finally sends the result to the receiver.
 149
 150 The first phase is receiving the mail. The proxy may reject the mail
 151 early, or instead accepts the mail and feeds it into the filter. The filter
 152 rules can block or accept the mail.
 153
 154 In the second phase, accepted mails need to be delivered to the
 155 receiver. This action may also fail or succeed. 'Status'
 156 combines the result from the first and second phase.
 157
 158 [options="header",cols="2s,1d,5d"]
 159 |====
 160 |Status |Phase |Description
 161 |rejected             |1 | Email rejected (e.g. sender IP is listed on a IP blacklist)
 162 |greylisted           |1 | Email temporarily rejected by greylisting
 163 |queued/deferred      |1 | Internal Email was queued, still trying to deliver
 164 |queued/bounced       |1 | Internal Email was queued but not accepted by the target email server (for example user unknown)
 165 |queued/delivered     |1 | Internal Email was queued and delivered
 166 |quarantine           |1 | Email was moved to quarantine
 167 |blocked              |1 | Email was blocked by filter rules
 168 |accepted/deferred    |2 | Email accepted, still trying to deliver
 169 |accepted/bounced     |2 | Email accepted but not accepted by the target email server (for example user unknown)
 170 |accepted/delivered   |2 | Email accepted and delivered
 171 |====
 172
 173 [[postfix_queue_administration]]
 174 Postfix Queue Administration
 175 ----------------------------
 176
 177 [thumbnail="pmg-gui-queue-admin-summary.png", big=1]
 178
 179 Mail-queues are one of the central concepts of the SMTP protocol. Once a
 180 mailserver accepts a mail for further processing it saves it to a queue.
 181 After the mail is either relayed to another system, stored locally
 182 or discarded, it is deleted from the local mail-queue.
 183
 184 If immediate processing is not possible, for example because a downstream
 185 mailserver is not reachable, the mail remains on the queue for later
 186 processing.
 187
 188 The 'Queue Administration' panel provides a summary about the current state
 189 of the postfix mail-queue, similar to the 'qshape (1)' command-line utility.
 190
 191 It shows domains for which mails were not delivered, and how long they have
 192 been queued.
 193
 194 The three Action Buttons on top provide the most common queue operations:
 195
 196 'Flush Queue'::
 197
 198 Attempt to deliver all currently queued mail, for example if a downstream
 199 server has become available again.
 200
 201 'Delete All Messages'::
 202
 203 Delete all currently queued mail, for example if the queue contains only spam.
 204
 205 'Discard address verification database'::
 206
 207 Clear the recipient verification cache.
 208
 209 A sudden increase of queued mails should be checked out closely. It can
 210 indicate issues connecting to downstream servers.
 211 This can also mean that one of the servers for which you relay emails sends
 212 spam itself.
 213
 214 Deferred Mail
 215 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 216 [thumbnail="pmg-gui-queue-admin-deferred.png"]
 217
 218 In the 'Deferred Mail' tab you can examine each deferred email separately.
 219 Besides providing the contact information about sender and receiver you can
 220 also check the reason for an email being still queued.
 221
 222 You can view the complete headers and filter by sender or receiver of queued up
 223 mails.
 224
 225 Here you can also flush or delete each deferred email independently.