# Postfix
Plugin: python.d.plugin
Module: postfix
## Overview
Keep an eye on Postfix metrics for efficient mail server operations.
Improve your mail server performance with Netdata's real-time metrics and built-in alerts.
Monitors MTA email queue statistics using [postqueue](http://www.postfix.org/postqueue.1.html) tool.
This collector is supported on all platforms.
This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration, including remote instances.
Postfix has internal access controls that limit activities on the mail queue. By default, all users are allowed to view the queue. If your system is configured with stricter access controls, you need to grant the `netdata` user access to view the mail queue. In order to do it, add `netdata` to `authorized_mailq_users` in the `/etc/postfix/main.cf` file.
See the `authorized_mailq_users` setting in the [Postfix documentation](https://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html) for more details.
### Default Behavior
#### Auto-Detection
The collector executes `postqueue -p` to get Postfix queue statistics.
#### Limits
The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.
#### Performance Impact
The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.
## Metrics
Metrics grouped by *scope*.
The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.
### Per Postfix instance
These metrics refer to the entire monitored application.
This scope has no labels.
Metrics:
| Metric | Dimensions | Unit |
|:------|:----------|:----|
| postfix.qemails | emails | emails |
| postfix.qsize | size | KiB |
## Alerts
There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.
## Setup
### Prerequisites
No action required.
### Configuration
#### File
There is no configuration file.
#### Options
There are 2 sections:
* Global variables
* One or more JOBS that can define multiple different instances to monitor.
The following options can be defined globally: priority, penalty, autodetection_retry, update_every, but can also be defined per JOB to override the global values.
Additionally, the following collapsed table contains all the options that can be configured inside a JOB definition.
Every configuration JOB starts with a `job_name` value which will appear in the dashboard, unless a `name` parameter is specified.
Config options
| Name | Description | Default | Required |
|:----|:-----------|:-------|:--------:|
| update_every | Sets the default data collection frequency. | 1 | no |
| priority | Controls the order of charts at the netdata dashboard. | 60000 | no |
| autodetection_retry | Sets the job re-check interval in seconds. | 0 | no |
| penalty | Indicates whether to apply penalty to update_every in case of failures. | yes | no |
| name | Job name. This value will overwrite the `job_name` value. JOBS with the same name are mutually exclusive. Only one of them will be allowed running at any time. This allows autodetection to try several alternatives and pick the one that works. | | no |