Many admins disable or overlook this port, thinking it’s just for a “nice-to-have” web interface. In reality, the PowerMTA HTTP monitoring endpoint (default port 8080) is your best friend for real-time observability.
Example telegraf.conf snippet:
It doesn't serve a fancy HTML dashboard by default (though you can build one). Instead, it serves (similar to CSV or key-value pairs) perfect for scripts, Prometheus exporters, or Nagios checks. How to Enable and Test It First, ensure your configuration has this block: powermta monitoring 8080
[[inputs.http]] urls = ["http://localhost:8080/pmta/stats"] data_format = "value" data_type = "string" [[processors.regex]] [[processors.regex.fields]] key = "body" pattern = "(\w+\.\w+\.\w+)\s+(\d+)" replacement = "$1:$2" Many admins disable or overlook this port, thinking
Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Port 8080: A Guide to PowerMTA Monitoring Instead, it serves (similar to CSV or key-value
#!/bin/bash METRICS=$(curl -s http://localhost:8080/pmta/stats) QUEUE_SIZE=$(echo "$METRICS" | grep "pmta.system.queue.size" | awk 'print $2') if [ "$QUEUE_SIZE" -gt 50000 ]; then echo "CRITICAL: PMTA queue > 50k messages" exit 2 elif [ "$QUEUE_SIZE" -gt 10000 ]; then echo "WARNING: Queue building up" exit 1 else echo "OK: Queue size $QUEUE_SIZE" exit 0 fi