Postfix Compatibility Mode

Submitted by sonoracomm on Thu, 04/12/2018 - 13:14 Pro Licensee

Hi,

This is more of a question than a problem, I hope.

I'm migrating a server to new hardware, with some domains already migrated. I'm getting ready to migrate the domains with e-mail enabled.

I have noticed lines like these in /var/log/mail.log on the NEW server:

Mar 30 08:28:24 www3 postfix[1738]: See http://www.postfix.org/COMPATIBILITY_README.html for details
Mar 30 08:28:24 www3 postfix[1738]: To disable backwards compatibility use "postconf compatibility_level=2" and "postfix reload"

Can you please advise me?

Thank you,

G

Status: 
Active

Comments

Submitted by JamieCameron on Thu, 04/12/2018 - 16:44

Is there anything else in the log from postfix before those lines?

Submitted by andreychek on Thu, 04/12/2018 - 18:47

Yeah try restarting Postfix with "service postfix restart", which may trigger it to generate that message, and alert you to any additional messages.

Let us know any messages you see after Postfix restarts.

Submitted by sonoracomm on Fri, 04/13/2018 - 10:30 Pro Licensee

Hi,

Again, I'm not sure this is a problem, but it looks like something that should be addressed...

There were no errors or output at the CLI when restarting.

Thanks,

G

root@www3:~# service postfix restart
root@www3:~# tail -f /var/log/mail.log
Apr 13 08:25:22 www3 postfix/smtpd[1291]: lost connection after AUTH from unknown[185.110.132.161]
Apr 13 08:25:22 www3 postfix/smtpd[1291]: disconnect from unknown[185.110.132.161] ehlo=1 auth=0/1 commands=1/2
Apr 13 08:26:21 www3 postfix[1696]: Postfix is running with backwards-compatible default settings
Apr 13 08:26:21 www3 postfix[1696]: See http://www.postfix.org/COMPATIBILITY_README.html for details
Apr 13 08:26:21 www3 postfix[1696]: To disable backwards compatibility use "postconf compatibility_level=2" and "postfix reload"
Apr 13 08:26:21 www3 postfix/master[1788]: terminating on signal 15
Apr 13 08:26:21 www3 postfix[1787]: Postfix is running with backwards-compatible default settings
Apr 13 08:26:21 www3 postfix[1787]: See http://www.postfix.org/COMPATIBILITY_README.html for details
Apr 13 08:26:21 www3 postfix[1787]: To disable backwards compatibility use "postconf compatibility_level=2" and "postfix reload"
Apr 13 08:26:21 www3 postfix/master[1825]: daemon started -- version 3.1.0, configuration /etc/postfix

Submitted by andreychek on Fri, 04/13/2018 - 12:18

I don't see any other problems or errors, just that one message, which is good.

I reviewed my own Ubuntu 16.04 system, and I'm seeing that same notice in the logs.

I suspect Ubuntu is just enabling a backwards compatibility mode in that particular distro version.

Looking at my Ubuntu 14.04 system, there isn't even a compatibility_level option, so that sounds like a newly available option in Postfix.

That should be safe to ignore then.

However, if you don't like seeing it in the logs, you could always try editing your main.cf and setting "compatibility_level=2", but I don't think that's necessary... personally I'd just ignore that.