# [solved] Qmail timestamp-ing

## ragarwal

What kind of a wierd timestamp-ing is used by qmail (How in the world can someone figure out when a message was logged?).

If you need a convertor to translate the time-stamp to human readable format, why be so bass-ackwards?

Won't it be better to log in a human-redable format and convert to machine readable format using the convertor?

  **so confused**   :Shocked:   **as always**Last edited by ragarwal on Sun Aug 07, 2005 10:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## tumbak

 *ragarwal wrote:*   

> What kind of a wierd timestamp-ing is used by qmail (How in the world can someone figure out when a message was logged?).
> 
> If you need a convertor to translate the time-stamp to human readable format, why be so bass-ackwards?
> 
> Won't it be better to log in a human-redable format and convert to machine readable format using the convertor?
> ...

 

The time since the epoch is more compact and faster to parse, qmail logs are intended to be parsed before they are viewed.

hope this answers.

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## kashani

What tumbak said. And here's the package to help you parse it. 

*  net-mail/qmailanalog

      Latest version available: 0.70-r1

      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]

      Size of downloaded files: 27 kB

      Homepage:    http://cr.yp.to/qmailanalog.html

      Description: collection of tools to help you analyze qmail's activity record

      License:     as-is

Though I seem to recall that parsing logs was still a complete pain in the ass even with the package if you cared about time stamps.

kashani

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## ragarwal

 *ragarwal wrote:*   

> What kind of a wierd timestamp-ing is used by qmail (How in the world can someone figure out when a message was logged?).
> 
> If you need a convertor to translate the time-stamp to human readable format, why be so bass-ackwards?
> 
> Won't it be better to log in a human-redable format and convert to machine readable format using the convertor?
> ...

 

OK.  thanks for the insights guys.  I have just dicovered that if people want to understand this epoch non-sense in a human comprehensible language, try the command:

```
cat /var/log/qmail/smtpd/current | tai64nlocal | less
```

This will display the logs (in a format where the epoch non-sensical timestamp is changed into something useful and readable by us mere mortals).   :Smile: 

My peeve is why even bother printing a epoch time.... why not just a localtime?  Does it really make that much of a difference in performance?

A larger issue:  The high-performace tuning should be left to the handful of people with deep understanding of systems etc.  By default, people should have to do more work to get more performance out of their systems.  Simplicity should be given as much of a priority as erpformance (without going overboard).  The default gentoo installation should be geared towards simplicity.  I'd trade simplicity for 0.5% performance hit any day.  I would imagine that 99.99% of the Gentoo community does not give a crap if their mail servers consume an extra 5 seconds of processing-power/month.  Any thoughts?

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## kashani

 *ragarwal wrote:*   

> 
> 
> My peeve is why even bother printing a epoch time.... why not just a localtime?  Does it really make that much of a difference in performance?
> 
> A larger issue:  The high-performace tuning should be left to the handful of people with deep understanding of systems etc.  By default, people should have to do more work to get more performance out of their systems.  Simplicity should be given as much of a priority as erpformance (without going overboard).  The default gentoo installation should be geared towards simplicity.  I'd trade simplicity for 0.5% performance hit any day.  I would imagine that 99.99% of the Gentoo community does not give a crap if their mail servers consume an extra 5 seconds of processing-power/month.  Any thoughts?

 

Welcome to qmail where things that made sense in '97 are still being done because the code was last updated in '98.  :Smile: 

kashani

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## ragarwal

Are people considering forking out qmail ?

Any thoughts?

 *kashani wrote:*   

>  *ragarwal wrote:*   
> 
> My peeve is why even bother printing a epoch time.... why not just a localtime?  Does it really make that much of a difference in performance?
> 
> A larger issue:  The high-performace tuning should be left to the handful of people with deep understanding of systems etc.  By default, people should have to do more work to get more performance out of their systems.  Simplicity should be given as much of a priority as erpformance (without going overboard).  The default gentoo installation should be geared towards simplicity.  I'd trade simplicity for 0.5% performance hit any day.  I would imagine that 99.99% of the Gentoo community does not give a crap if their mail servers consume an extra 5 seconds of processing-power/month.  Any thoughts? 
> ...

 

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## kashani

Can't fork it because of the license. However some of the LWQ guys have managed to put together a package that installs most of the patches you need to get qmail running on a current OS. About the equivalent of the 1.0.3-r8 Gentoo ebuild in functionality. You still need to mess with it quite a bit to get close to Gentoo's current qmail ebuild. 

http://www.qmail.org/netqmail/

I enjoyed qmail back in the day when it really was the only choice, but now find it a big pain in the ass to get it to look like a modern mail system.

kashani

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## ragarwal

Ob Q:  What is your MTA of choice?  The trouble is the following.  I am currently working with a small business owner who suspects corporate epionage (I think he is paranoid).  Now he wants me to help him setup an e-mail system where he can monitor incoming and outgoing e-mails as written in the corporate policy.  Do you think Q-mail can handle this?  What would you recommed?

Requirements:

(1) IMAP-SSL (for Outlook) / POP3-SSL (for Outlook Express) / Web-Mail / Password over Web.

(2) Copy of imcoming and outgoing e-mails available on seperate server.

Thanks

 *kashani wrote:*   

> Can't fork it because of the license. However some of the LWQ guys have managed to put together a package that installs most of the patches you need to get qmail running on a current OS. About the equivalent of the 1.0.3-r8 Gentoo ebuild in functionality. You still need to mess with it quite a bit to get close to Gentoo's current qmail ebuild. 
> 
> http://www.qmail.org/netqmail/
> 
> I enjoyed qmail back in the day when it really was the only choice, but now find it a big pain in the ass to get it to look like a modern mail system.
> ...

 

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## kashani

That came up on the gentoo mailing list recently. Someone suggested that using MailScanner was the easiest way to archive all incoming and outgoing emails. He also mentioned doing the archive after you decide something is spam or not to cut down on the crap in your archive. I'm not sure the actual config used, but that should get you started.

Hmmm imap-ssl and pop3-ssl weren't hard to setup via Courier-imap, SquirrelMail works okay and there is a plugin so that allows users to change their password from within Squirrel. The Gentoo virtual how-to isn't bad, but it needs a good update. The wiki version is a bit more up to date, but still has some crap in it.

Personally as a MTA I perfer Postfix as it under active development and keeps getting better with each release. The SQL statements have also gotten a bit more powerful lately. I recently rolled out a PostfixAdmin based virtual mail system, Mysql, Courier, SquirrelMail, and Horde IMP in about three days from start to finish. Granted I had built other virtual systems before so I fair idea of what I wanted. YMMV.

In any case I don't think adding MailScanner to qmail should be a problem and might be the easiest solution rather than trying to start from scratch. Send them all to a single account and your boss can amuse himself by reading everyone's email in his leisure.

kashani

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