Dominic Raferd:
> Is there a best/recommended way to pause postfix local deliveries so that I
> can take an LVM snapshot of the local mails for backup purposes? The pause
> only has to be momentary, while the snapshot is taken, but the files need
> to be in a consistent state. If anyone also knows the way to pause Dovecot
> imap/pop3 similarly (as this could also be accessing the same files), that
> would be helpful too.
# postconf defer_transports=xxx
# postfix reload
For a suitable value of xxx (name in master.cf).
This tells the queue manager to stop generating delivery requests.
It does not suspend a delivery request that is already in progress;
by design, Postfix has no single program that knows 'everything'.
As documented, defer_transports also does not block forced delivery
commands such as "postfix flush" and "sendmail -q".
Wietse
