SMPTS (465) not coming back up after reboot.

daves_nt_here

I run my MC on a Proxmox VM and every night at 12:30am I have it shutdown and backup the whole VM.
This morning, the VM came back up but port 465 is not working.
Any ideas why it’s not starting? In the Admin UI the postfix container says it’s running.

root@mailcow:~# ss -tlpn | grep -E -w '25|80|110|143|443|465|587|993|995|4190' LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2543,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:110 0.0.0.0:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2417,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:143 0.0.0.0:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2431,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:443 0.0.0.0:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2560,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:993 0.0.0.0:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2446,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:995 0.0.0.0:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2461,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 20 127.0.0.1:25 0.0.0.0:* users:(("exim4",pid=796,fd=4)) LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:4190 0.0.0.0:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2476,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 20 [::1]:25 [::]:* users:(("exim4",pid=796,fd=5)) LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:80 [::]:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2551,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:110 [::]:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2424,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:143 [::]:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2438,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:443 [::]:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2569,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:993 [::]:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2452,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:995 [::]:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2469,fd=7)) LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:4190 [::]:* users:(("docker-proxy",pid=2484,fd=7))

Postfix log:
postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:04,008 WARN received SIGTERM indicating exit request postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:04,010 INFO waiting for processes, postfix, syslog-ng to die postfix-mailcow-1 | Oct 23 00:30:04 762f4bc9bef5 syslog-ng[10]: syslog-ng shutting down; version='3.38.1' postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:04,124 INFO stopped: syslog-ng (exit status 0) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,128 WARN stopped: postfix (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,129 INFO reaped unknown pid 376 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,129 INFO reaped unknown pid 378 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,130 INFO reaped unknown pid 379 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,130 INFO reaped unknown pid 383 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,130 INFO reaped unknown pid 7030 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,131 INFO reaped unknown pid 7113 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,131 INFO reaped unknown pid 7155 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,131 INFO reaped unknown pid 7172 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,132 INFO reaped unknown pid 7192 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,132 INFO reaped unknown pid 7236 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,132 INFO reaped unknown pid 7256 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,133 INFO reaped unknown pid 7279 (exit status 0) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,133 INFO reaped unknown pid 7280 (exit status 0) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,134 INFO reaped unknown pid 7281 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,134 INFO reaped unknown pid 7308 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,134 INFO reaped unknown pid 7315 (exit status 15) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,135 INFO reaped unknown pid 7317 (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,135 INFO reaped unknown pid 7329 (exit status 0) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,135 INFO reaped unknown pid 7282 (exit status 0) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,137 WARN stopped: processes (terminated by SIGTERM) postfix-mailcow-1 | 2025-10-23 00:30:05,138 WARN received SIGQUIT indicating exit request

Watchdog log:
10/23/2025, 01:06:13 PM Wait for restarted container to settle and continue watching... 10/23/2025, 01:06:08 PM Sending restart command to c1dad7b2c918c16f1d30106cb488ba5... 10/23/2025, 01:05:58 PM Postfix TLS Policy hit error limit

esackbauer

daves_nt_here LISTEN 0 20 127.0.0.1:25 0.0.0.0:* users🙁(“exim4”,pid=796,fd=4))

Not only port 465, even worse port 25 gets hijacked by exim.

You are running an exim MTA in your VM. So that most likely is the cause for that.
Did you upgrade Debian 12 to 13? Then you probably missed this:
https://mailcow.email/posts/2025/upgrade-deb12-to-deb13/

mlcwuser

daves_nt_here AFAIK, no exim on my Proxmox

But it seems that Exim is running in the Mailcow VM. At least, that’s what the output of the ss -tlpn command you posted suggests, assuming you ran the command inside the VM.

daves_nt_here LISTEN 0 20 [::1]:25 [::]:* users:(("exim4",pid=796,fd=5))

CK_beats

It could be that you have this problem here: https://community.mailcow.email/d/3303-sogo-does-not-want-to-start-i-get-a-warn-received-sigterm

daves_nt_here

CK_beats That dosent seem to be the same problem. I also don’t have 50,000 users. Just 30.

daves_nt_here

esackbauer AFAIK, no exim on my Proxmox. I’m still a version behind on my Proxmox and on Debian 12. I’ve checked the host PVE and no exim running their either. No idea how it got in their.