Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 09:57:22 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: Charles Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sendmail and /var/spool/mqueue Message-ID: <20040618095722.02ff5a1a.wmoran@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <8E443DE8-C090-11D8-A918-003065ABFD92@mac.com> References: <20040617143919.3c0835a5.wmoran@potentialtech.com> <8E443DE8-C090-11D8-A918-003065ABFD92@mac.com>
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Charles Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> wrote: > On Jun 17, 2004, at 2:39 PM, Bill Moran wrote: > > What does it mean when I have a lot of files in /var/spool/mqueue? I > > don't > > really understand what that particular queue is for. > > That is the queue of unsent messages which sendmail will periodicly > attempt to resend (every four hours, by default). You can try to flush > them via "sendmail -v -q". I appreciate the input, Chuck, but now I'm more confused. When I did this, folks suddenly started receiving emails from two years ago. I'm a bit confused as to _why_ sendmail would hang on to mails from years ago without either delivering them or bouncing them? Could the queue have been corrupt? Caused quite a stir, actually ... folks were getting order requests from a year ago. > > This client is not having any problems getting/sending mail, and the > > mailq > > command only shows one mail in the queue, but I have 3867 files in this > > directory. > > Hmm. Sendmail tends to accumulate spam-related bounces which can't be > delivered because the spam used forged headers, and I've seen some > signs that sendmail doesn't always manage to clean up the queue files > of such messages after they can't be delivered for 5 days. > > [ I seem to recall that the sendmail operations guide recommends moving > mqueue to oqueue, creating a new mqueue, and then processing the oqueue > by hand. Once that is completed, delete oqueue and any leftover > files.... ] I think this is a good argument for Postfix ... -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com
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