Bug 1057349

Summary: postfix/smtpd[3493]: fatal: bad string length 0 < 1: smtpd_sasl_path =
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE Tumbleweed Reporter: Qingming Su <qingming.su>
Component: BasesystemAssignee: Peter Varkoly <varkoly>
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX QA Contact: E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity: Normal    
Priority: P5 - None CC: jon, karl.mistelberger, stefano.torresi
Version: Current   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: Other   
OS: Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---

Description Qingming Su 2017-09-06 07:40:10 UTC 
The problem is found by fetchmail, which fails to fetch mail from a remote mailserver (runing postfix+dovecot)

The console output looks like:
admin@localhost:~> fetchmail -v --ssl mail.openqa.suse
fetchmail: 6.3.26 querying mail.openqa.suse (protocol POP3) at Wed 06 Sep 2017 03:12:03 PM CST: poll started
Trying to connect to 10.67.18.229/995...connected.
fetchmail: Server certificate:
fetchmail: Issuer Organization: SUSE
fetchmail: Issuer CommonName: openQA CA
fetchmail: Subject CommonName: mail.openqa.suse
fetchmail: mail.openqa.suse key fingerprint: 4E:FD:84:BE:B5:6C:BF:B0:75:F2:F4:EF:E8:7F:50:9E
fetchmail: POP3< +OK Dovecot ready.
fetchmail: POP3> CAPA
fetchmail: POP3< +OK
fetchmail: POP3< CAPA
fetchmail: POP3< TOP
fetchmail: POP3< UIDL
fetchmail: POP3< RESP-CODES
fetchmail: POP3< PIPELINING
fetchmail: POP3< AUTH-RESP-CODE
fetchmail: POP3< USER
fetchmail: POP3< SASL PLAIN
fetchmail: POP3< .
fetchmail: POP3> USER admin
fetchmail: POP3< +OK
fetchmail: POP3> PASS *
fetchmail: POP3< +OK Logged in.
fetchmail: POP3> STAT
fetchmail: POP3< +OK 2 1446
fetchmail: POP3> LAST
fetchmail: POP3< -ERR Unknown command: LAST
fetchmail: Unknown command: LAST
fetchmail: POP3> UIDL
fetchmail: POP3< +OK
fetchmail: POP3< 1 00000016599145ec
fetchmail: POP3< 2 00000017599145ec
fetchmail: POP3< .
2 messages for admin at mail.openqa.suse (1446 octets).
fetchmail: POP3> LIST 1
fetchmail: POP3< +OK 1 741
fetchmail: POP3> TOP 1 99999999
fetchmail: POP3< +OK
reading message admin@mail.openqa.suse:1 of 2 (741 octets) 
Trying to connect to ::1/25...connected.
<fetchmail hangs here>

The system journal disclosures the real issue:
Sep 06 15:03:49 localhost postfix/smtpd[3442]: fatal: bad string length 0 < 1: smtpd_sasl_path =
Sep 06 15:03:50 localhost postfix/master[2712]: warning: process /usr/lib/postfix/smtpd pid 3442 exit status 1
Sep 06 15:03:50 localhost postfix/master[2712]: warning: /usr/lib/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling

The error can be fixed by editing the configuration file /etc/postfix/main.cf, comment out the following lines:
smtpd_sasl_path =
smtpd_sasl_type =

Note: the new lines look like:
#smtpd_sasl_path =
#smtpd_sasl_type =
Comment 1 Jon Brightwell 2017-10-12 08:57:35 UTC 
I'm still seeing this. journal is full of these:

fatal: bad string length 0 < 1: smtpd_sasl_path =
Oct 12 08:50:28 mudkip.farm postfix/master[1366]: warning: process /usr/lib/postfix/smtpd pid 11471 exit status 1
Oct 12 08:50:28 mudkip.farm postfix/master[1366]: warning: /usr/lib/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling

Running default config. Commenting line 750 & 751 (as per previous comment) resolves the issue.
Comment 2 Karl Mistelberger 2017-12-26 08:16:56 UTC 
This is a show stopper for new installations. To work around comment out as follows:

hofkirchen:~ # postconf -# smtpd_sasl_type
hofkirchen:~ # postconf -# smtpd_sasl_path
hofkirchen:~ # systemctl restart postfix
hofkirchen:~ #
Comment 3 Karl Mistelberger 2017-12-26 08:19:37 UTC 
This is a show stopper for new installations. To work around comment out as follows:

hofkirchen:~ # postconf -# smtpd_sasl_type
hofkirchen:~ # postconf -# smtpd_sasl_path
hofkirchen:~ # systemctl restart postfix
hofkirchen:~ #
Comment 4 Stefano Torresi 2021-05-12 17:20:53 UTC 
Closing due to inactivity.