Administering the Queue Directories (Tasks)

This section describes some helpful tasks for queue administration. For information about the client-only queue, refer to New Configuration File, submit.cf. For other related information, you can refer to New Queue Features.

How to Display the Contents of the Mail Queue, /var/spool/mqueue

Use this procedure to see how many messages are in the queue and how fast they are being cleared from the queue.

Use the following command to display this information.

• The queue IDs

• The size of the message

• The date that the message entered the queue

• The message status

• The sender and the recipients

# /usr/bin/mailq | more

This command now checks for the authorization attribute, solaris.admin.mail.mailq. If the check is successful, the equivalent of specifying the -bp flag with sendmail is executed. If the check fails, an error message is printed. By default, this authorization attribute is enabled for all users. The authorization attribute can be disabled by modifying the user entry in prof_attr. For more information, refer to the man pages for prof_attr(4) and mailq(1).

How to Force Mail Queue Processing in the Mail Queue, /var/spool/mqueue

Use this procedure, for example, to process messages to a system that was previously unable to receive messages.

1. Become root or assume an equivalent role.

   For information about roles, refer to “Using Privileged Applications” in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Force queue processing and display the progress of the jobs as the queue is cleared.

   # /usr/lib/sendmail -q -v

How to Run a Subset of the Mail Queue, /var/spool/mqueue

Use this procedure, for example, to force a substring of an address, such as a host name, to be processed. Also, use this procedure to force a particular message from the queue.

1. Become root or assume an equivalent role.

   For information about roles, refer to “Using Privileged Applications” in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Run a subset of the mail queue at any time with -qRstring.

   # /usr/lib/sendmail -qRstring

   string

   Use a recipient's alias or a substring of user@host.domain, such as a host name.

   Alternately, you can run a subset of the mail queue with -qInnnnn.

   # /usr/lib/sendmail -qInnnnn

   nnnnn

   Use a queue ID.

How to Move the Mail Queue, /var/spool/mqueue

If you are moving the mail queue, follow these instructions.

1. Become root on the mail host or assume an equivalent role.

   For information about roles, refer to “Using Privileged Applications” in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Kill the sendmail daemon.

   # /etc/init.d/sendmail stop

   Now, sendmail is no longer processing the queue directory.

3. Change to the /var/spool directory.

   # cd /var/spool

4. Move the directory, mqueue, and all its contents to the omqueue directory. Then create a new empty directory that is named mqueue.

   # mv mqueue omqueue; mkdir mqueue

5. Set the permissions of the directory to read/write/execute by owner, and read/execute by group. Also, set the owner and group to daemon.

   # chmod 750 mqueue; chown root:bin mqueue

6. Start sendmail.

   # /etc/init.d/sendmail start

How to Run the Old Mail Queue, /var/spool/omqueue

To run an old mail queue, follow these instructions.

1. Become root or assume an equivalent role.

   For information about roles, refer to “Using Privileged Applications” in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Run the old mail queue.

   # /usr/lib/sendmail -oQ/var/spool/omqueue -q

   The -oQ flag specifies an alternate queue directory. The -q flag says to run every job in the queue. Use the -v flag if you are displaying the verbose output on the screen.

3. Remove the empty directory.

   # rmdir /var/spool/omqueue