purging old mail

[Steve Bertrand]

mats.lindberg at se.transport.bombardier.com wrote:
> Hi all, 
> I'm setting up a FreeBSD 5.4 system that need to run unattended for a year 
> or more.
> I've noticed that the /var/mail/root file grows a bit over time.
> 
> Do I need to configure the system in some way to prevent this file from 
> growing indefinately, filling up the /var partition?

Are you actually interested in reading root mail?

Are you running sendmail?

If so, in the /etc/mail/aliases file, change the root alias to an email
address that someone actually POP's.

If you don't want to read the email at all, change the root alias to
point to /dev/null.

Then run 'newaliases'.

I've found that the postmaster account is much more prone to filling up
a partition, so ensure that you redirect this address as well.

Steve