Tracking emails with Postfix

Question: I am noticing some problems with my email server, Postfix. Is there a way to track emails?

Answer: While you should definitely not use this for purpose of spying, it is sometimes necessary to track all emails on a server, even if you have multiple users on it. Sometimes the enemy may be within, and someone sending abusive emails on your server can put everyone else’s websites in jeopardy.

Using the “always_bcc” setting, Postfix will send a blind carbon copy of every email to an administrator of your choice. This, of course, will generate a lot of email for that account, so the best thing to do is to create an account just for that purpose. Edit the Postfix main.cf file and add the following line:

always_bcc=harvestadmin@yourdomain.com

To get it started, you will need to reload postfix with:

postfix reload

Soon, that account will start receiving everything. Good luck finding the cause of whatever problem you have.

Photo: Flickr