Sendmail and /var/spool/mqueue

[Charles Swiger]

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".

> 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.... ]

-- 
-Chuck