Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.3 Administration Guide

13.4 To Temporarily Hold Messages Using the Hold Channel

The hold channel is used to hold the messages of a recipient temporarily prevented from receiving new messages. Messages may be held because a user’s name is being changed or their mailbox is being moved from one mailhost or domain to another. There may also be other reasons to temporarily hold messages.

When messages are to be held, they are directed to the hold channel, in the msg-svr-base/queue/hold directory, using the same mechanism used to direct messages to the reprocess channel. In this way, the envelope To: addresses are unchanged. The messages are written to the hold channel queue, in the msg-server/queue/hold directory, as ZZxxx.HELD files. This prevents them from being seen by the job controller, and thus they are “held.” Use the imsimta qm dir -held command to view a list of .HELD files. These messages can be selected and released using the imsimta qm release command. Releasing them changes their name to ZZxxx.00 and informs the job controller. The messages are then processed by the master program associated with the hold channel, reprocess.exe. Thus the message (and the To: addresses) are processed using the normal rewriting machinery.

For more information on the imsimta qm command, see imsimta qm in Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.3 Administration Reference.