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Subject: How to modify timezone for users/server to set correct time on emails
Hello fellow Citadel supporters
I hope you are well.
I have deployed Citadel using the docker container method. It seems all e-mails timestamps are offset by 2 hours ahead. I am wondering if there is a way and what the best method is to set a date/time or timezone for the Citadel server or per user.
I have checked the result of $date in the docker container (docker exec -it citadel /bin/bash) which is correct, and have also tried to change the timezone environment variable in the docker run command with -e TZ=GMT and -e TZ=Africa/Johannesburg, which does reflect the time change in the docker container bash date command, however this doesn't make a difference to the timestamp of emails sent/received, so I'm assuming I can set this somewhere on Citadel but am hoping for a nudge in the right direction as to where since I'm unable to find anything in the web interface logged in as admin or as the mailbox user.
Thank you
Kind Regards
Andre
Dear All,
My settings:
Centos 9, 2 threads, 3GBytes Memory, 4GBytes Swap Memory, 15GBytes free Disk. Citadel with 2 email users.
As I said in a previous post my citadel data files does a rotation every 3-4 months. I have emails of only of the last 3 to 4 months. Every month I delete the older month. Usually after 3-4 months the citadel main data file reduces drastically in size after increasing for 3-4 months. Now I notice that citadel seems more stable (no core dumps). However I do not see the data file redution. By seeing the "Size on Disk" (with Properties) in Thunderbird I can see that I have 1.5 GBytes of emails but the main citadel data file have 4 GBytes.
I use a lot the ctdldump and ctdlload (offline commands) as I saw that improves the stability of Citadel. I use/do usually when I trash a lot of emails (in size).
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Thank you,
Luís Gonçalves.
Subject: Re: How to modify timezone for users/server to set correct time on emails
I have checked the result of $date in the docker container (docker exec -it citadel /bin/bash) which is correct, and have also tried to change the timezone environment variable in the docker run command with -e TZ=GMT and -e TZ=Africa/Johannesburg, which does reflect the time change in the docker container bash date command, however this doesn't make a difference to the timestamp of emails sent/received, so I'm assuming I can set this somewhere on Citadel but am hoping for a nudge in the right direction as to where since I'm unable to find anything in the web interface logged in as admin or as the mailbox user.
Citadel clients (including WebCit) render the date and time based on the time zone the client is set to. Since you're probably using WebCit Classic that's definitely the web server's time zone setting.
For sending out mail, the timezone of the host is relevant, the zone the host is set to before you run the Docker container.
Subject: Re: How to modify timezone for users/server to set correct time on emails
Mon May 04 2026 11:08:02 PM UTC from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: How to modify timezone for users/server to set correct time on emails
I stand corrected. Look at that, it's showing the time in UTC right here on Uncensored, which is definitely running in US Eastern time zone. Let me check the build and see what's up with that.
Thanks for the report.
Subject: Re: How to modify timezone for users/server to set correct time on emails
Found it!
You have to map /etc/localtime in the container to /etc/localtime on the host. You can do it with a command like this:
docker run \ -d \ -e TZ=America/New_York \ -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro \ --restart=unless-stopped \ --network host \ --volume=/usr/local/citadel:/citadel-data \ --volume=/usr/local/webcit/.well-known:/usr/local/webcit/.well-known \ --name=citadel \ citadeldotorg/citadel
The key is that "-v" command up there. You were correct in setting "-e" to your timezone. Add the "-v" and it ought to work.
Tested, right here, just now.
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.
I want to shrink by purging the older emails previous deleted manually. I has the Auto-Purge setting.
I suppose that I can not do it configuring "Default message expire policy for private mailboxes". Or can I? I suppose that is to delete and purge active messages.
Seldom times appear notifications of purged messages at Aide and if so only one purged message or EEDI (??)
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.
You can define a purge rule for every folder. Also a rule to move it to archive.
I want to shrink by purging the older emails previous deleted manually. I has the Auto-Purge setting.
I suppose that I can not do it configuring "Default message expire policy for private mailboxes". Or can I? I suppose that is to delete and purge active messages.
Seldom times appear notifications of purged messages at Aide and if so only one purged message or EEDI (??)
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.
or on an individual room
A user without Administrator level can not do this. Am I right? Why so?
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.
with his own folders / rooms he can.
depends on rights of the folders. but your own folders like inbox, archive and so on, you can.
or on an individual room
A user without Administrator level can not do this. Am I right? Why so?
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.
With a Citadel Network user appears.
with his own folders / rooms he can.
depends on rights of the folders. but your own folders like inbox, archive and so on, you can.
or on an individual room
A user without Administrator level can not do this. Am I right? Why so?
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.
I think you are providing a semi-featured Citadel. The purge is not working. It supposed to purge the messages from 1st of February and it is not doing.
You can define a purge rule for every folder. Also a rule to move it to archive.
I want to shrink by purging the older emails previous deleted manually. I has the Auto-Purge setting.
I suppose that I can not do it configuring "Default message expire policy for private mailboxes". Or can I? I suppose that is to delete and purge active messages.
Seldom times appear notifications of purged messages at Aide and if so only one purged message or EEDI (??)
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.
This works really good for me. I have different purge rules for different folders. The purge will done with
Will done on Auto-Purge Job.
My Citadel Version is 1022 now for a long time.
If you want know more about my settings, let me know.
Greeintngs
Mike
I think you are providing a semi-featured Citadel. The purge is not working. It supposed to purge the messages from 1st of February and it is not doing.
You can define a purge rule for every folder. Also a rule to move it to archive.
I want to shrink by purging the older emails previous deleted manually. I has the Auto-Purge setting.
I suppose that I can not do it configuring "Default message expire policy for private mailboxes". Or can I? I suppose that is to delete and purge active messages.
Seldom times appear notifications of purged messages at Aide and if so only one purged message or EEDI (??)
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.
That's really neat. The current implementation of Citadel was specifically designed so that it can run as a self-sufficient standalone service or be part of a larger software ecosystem. I'm thrilled to see that you're doing the latter.
I'm curious how you've coupled Postfix and Citadel. Are you using the LMTP socket?
At the moment I'm actually not using LMTP between Postfix and Citadel.
The current setup uses Postfix mainly as SMTP frontend together with the traditional virtual/local transport model while Citadel remains the central communication and storage platform behind it.
I intentionally kept the architecture relatively classic and modular instead of tightly coupling everything together.
The overall goal was long-term maintainability, transparency and low operational complexity while still implementing modern mail security standards around the platform.
That's really neat. The current implementation of Citadel was specifically designed so that it can run as a self-sufficient standalone service or be part of a larger software ecosystem. I'm thrilled to see that you're doing the latter.
I'm curious how you've coupled Postfix and Citadel. Are you using the LMTP socket?
At the moment I'm actually using Postfix as SMTP frontend together with Rspamd, and then forwarding internally to Citadel via SMTP on port 2025.
So the current architecture is roughly:
Internet -> Postfix -> Rspamd -> Citadel SMTP
I intentionally kept the setup modular and relatively classic Unix-oriented instead of tightly coupling everything together.
LMTP is something I'm currently evaluating, but the existing SMTP-based integration has been extremely stable and easy to maintain so far.
That's really neat. The current implementation of Citadel was specifically designed so that it can run as a self-sufficient standalone service or be part of a larger software ecosystem. I'm thrilled to see that you're doing the latter.
I'm curious how you've coupled Postfix and Citadel. Are you using the LMTP socket?
Some system specs... Maybe this isn’t the right thread for it, but if you’re interested, let’s talk about it ;)
That's really neat. The current implementation of Citadel was specifically designed so that it can run as a self-sufficient standalone service or be part of a larger software ecosystem. I'm thrilled to see that you're doing the latter.
I'm curious how you've coupled Postfix and Citadel. Are you using the LMTP socket?
Migrated my Citadel setup from internal SMTP delivery to native LMTP
Hi everyone,
after running Citadel in production together with Postfix and Rspamd for quite some time, I recently migrated the internal mail delivery path from SMTP (localhost:2025) to native LMTP using Citadel's Unix domain sockets.
The setup is running stable in production now and works very well.
Current architecture:
Internet | Postfix | Rspamd | LMTP Unix Socket | Citadel The migration uses:
-
Postfix as SMTP edge gateway
-
Rspamd for filtering and signing
-
Citadel as backend groupware and mail store
-
LMTP over Unix sockets for local delivery
I documented the migration process, configuration changes and testing steps here:
Postfix LMTP Migration Documentation
The repository itself is here:
Maybe this helps someone building a modern Citadel-based mail platform with Postfix and Rspamd.
And thanks to the Citadel developers for still keeping classic Unix-style groupware alive 🙂
That's really neat. The current implementation of Citadel was specifically designed so that it can run as a self-sufficient standalone service or be part of a larger software ecosystem. I'm thrilled to see that you're doing the latter.
I'm curious how you've coupled Postfix and Citadel. Are you using the LMTP socket?
I have a personal Citadel email server with 2 users. I again state, a user must have Admin rights to configure the "Message expire policy". Can I give Admin rights to a user and configure the "Message expire policy" and then revoke those rights and the settings will remain?
Or could that be changed in future releases?
With a Citadel Network user appears.
with his own folders / rooms he can.
depends on rights of the folders. but your own folders like inbox, archive and so on, you can.
or on an individual room
A user without Administrator level can not do this. Am I right? Why so?
Are there some way to shrink the size of the main citadel data file without compromizing the citadel stability?
Do you have the auto-purger configured to delete "old" messages?
You can do this at the site-wide level, or on an individual room (such as your trash folder).
If new data is arriving at approximately the same rate old data is expiring, then yes, eventually you will reach an equilibrium where the database files stabilize in size.
Do look in the Aide room for messages confirming this. The helpful Citadel Aide will tell you how many objects are being deleted during the nightly purger run.