Frustration with postfix and sending email to a script

Posted on by

I want to set up an email address that executes a script with every incoming email, so in my /etc/aliases, I did this:

runscript: |/usr/local/bin/email_reading_script.py

Then I rebuilt the postfix alias db with sudo postalias /etc/aliases, and then sent an email to runscript@localhost. That’s when the fun began. The script is run by nobody/nogroup, so it couldn’t log to my logging directory, because I require people to be in the adm unix group.

Then I created a user named runscript, and moved that | /usr/local/bin/email_reading_script.py line into a .forward file. I added adm to runscript’s unix groups.

AND STILL NO JOY.

I don’t know why, but when the script runs, the shell only seems to get the primary group. So, I kept getting permission-denied errors. I finally got stuff to work when I set adm to be the primary group for my runscript user. Now everything is OK.

This ate up the better part of the @#$@#$ing day. Grr.

If this didn’t work, I was going to install procmail and go down that route.

Am using ubuntu hardy heron.

3 thoughts on “Frustration with postfix and sending email to a script”

  2. I think it's because your alias is not the unix user. The script is run by postfix, whose default user is 'nobody'.
    Try to write a file in /tmp with your script, and check the actual unix user that was used.
    I think the default postfix user can be changed in /etc/postfix/master.cf

Comments are closed.