From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 18 15:05:05 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C30C16A4CF for ; Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:05:05 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (ns0.infracaninophile.co.uk [81.2.69.218]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AFCE843D1D for ; Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:05:03 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: from happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk (localhost [IPv6:::1]) i5IF4BAi075137 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:04:11 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from matthew@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: (from matthew@localhost)id i5IF4Bhr075131; Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:04:11 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from matthew) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:04:10 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman To: Bill Moran Message-ID: <20040618150410.GA82217@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> Mail-Followup-To: Matthew Seaman , Bill Moran , Charles Swiger , questions@freebsd.org References: <20040617143919.3c0835a5.wmoran@potentialtech.com> <8E443DE8-C090-11D8-A918-003065ABFD92@mac.com> <20040618095722.02ff5a1a.wmoran@potentialtech.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="IJpNTDwzlM2Ie8A6" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040618095722.02ff5a1a.wmoran@potentialtech.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6i X-Greylist: Message not sent from an IPv4 address, not delayed by milter-greylist-1.4 (smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk [0.0.0.0]); Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:04:11 +0100 (BST) X-Virus-Scanned: clamd / ClamAV version devel-20040612, clamav-milter version 0.72a on smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-4.8 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=2.63 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sendmail and /var/spool/mqueue X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:05:05 -0000 --IJpNTDwzlM2Ie8A6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 09:57:22AM -0400, Bill Moran wrote: > Charles Swiger wrote: >=20 > > 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= =20 > > > don't > > > really understand what that particular queue is for. > >=20 > > That is the queue of unsent messages which sendmail will periodicly=20 > > attempt to resend (every four hours, by default). You can try to flush= =20 > > them via "sendmail -v -q". >=20 > I appreciate the input, Chuck, but now I'm more confused. >=20 > When I did this, folks suddenly started receiving emails from two years a= go. > 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 be= en > corrupt? Sounds like you aren't running a sendmail process to flush the queue regularly. Which means that any message that cannot be delivered immediately will be stuck into the /var/spool/mqueue directory and forgotten about. Look at /var/run/sendmail.pid -- the second line shows what command line sendmail was started with. Typically it will be something like: /usr/sbin/sendmail -L sm-mta -bd -q30m (You can't use ps(1) to extract this information, because sendmail is one of those programs that futzes with its argv[][] array as it runs) Unless you have a -qNNN flag in there somewhere, sendmail won't be processing any queued messages for you. Set this using the 'sendmail_flags' variable in /etc/rc.conf if necessary, although the value I've shown is the default. The trailing bit '30m' is how frequently sendmail attempts to run the queue -- somewhere between 15m and 30m is best: don't be tempted to set it too short, or you'll not give any correspondents enough time to sort out any problems their end before you try re-sending. If you end up with a load of messages stuck in /var/spool/clientmqueue, you've got a similar problem with not running a MSP queue daemon. The case is exactly analogous, except that the sendmail flags are in /var/spool/clientmqueue/sm-client.pid and should read: /usr/sbin/sendmail -L sm-msp-queue -Ac -q30m and you need to set 'sendmail_msp_queue_flags' in /etc/rc.conf to override them. Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK --IJpNTDwzlM2Ie8A6 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFA0wRqiD657aJF7eIRAoHnAJ44o7PIhusDZxa1a+Vymgd1zy771QCbBzX9 v13PXsf5y1XAUL8ZV35TD9U= =6ZHQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --IJpNTDwzlM2Ie8A6--