[ILUG] Programmatic mail sending with Postfix

[Colm Buckley]

> To send messages you write files in RFC822 format and drop them into a 
> specific directory. The PIPE module scans this directory periodically, 
> and processes any files it finds with a  .sub  extension.
>
> This is much more efficient than setting up an SMTP connection - we 
> regularly use it to send 10s of thousands of messages to a mailing 
> list.
>
> So the question is - is there any way of doing something similar with 
> Postfix?

I investigated this in 2002, and was unable to find an easy way to make 
Postfix do this.  In theory, all that is necessary is to drop files 
into Postfix's "maildrop" directory and then signal the queue runner.  
However, the maildrop directory contains files in a Postfix internal 
format rather than in RFC822 format.

The approach to take would be to abstract the routines from postdrop 
which convert RFC822 files to internal files, and use these in your 
program.  We decided that this would be more hassle than it's worth.

	Colm

-- 
Colm Buckley / colm at tuatha.org / +353 87 2469146 / www.colm.buckley.name