topic Re: Rhel3 / e-mail / clientmqueue problem in Operating System - Linux

Rhel3 / e-mail / clientmqueue problem

joseph wholey — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:04:14 GMT

Hello all... I need a little help here. I'm running sendmail on my RHEL3 server. Sending mail definitely works. However, I have a lot of mail stuck in the /var/spool/clientmqueue. This eventually causes a problem because sendmail attempts to send for 5 days (that's how we have it setup). How can I identify where the mail is coming from off of this server. I don't see anything w/in the files w/in /var/spool/clientmqueue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thx.

Re: Rhel3 / e-mail / clientmqueue problem

Steven E. Protter — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:21:52 GMT

Shalom,

So far, your setup seems default.

First outbound mail goes to /var/spool/mqueue

Then if its not delivered promptly it goes to /var/spool/clientmqueue

By the time it gets there its probably never going to get delivered.

the df files are the actual message.

the qf files maintains a status on the message like a little log files. after the first two characters the number should match.

If the files are empty they can be safely deleted.

Most common cause of undelivered mail ending up there:

1) Bad DNS resolution. This must be fixed. Absolute must for mail delivery.
2) invalid recipients, recipients blocked due to anti-spam rules.
3) Lack of a reverse dns entry for this server. Many systems like my own and AOL don't accept mail from mail servers with forged ip addresses, inconsistent ip addresses or servers that lack valid reverse dns records.

SEP

Re: Rhel3 / e-mail / clientmqueue problem

George Liu_4 — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:47:37 GMT

No. Your sendmail does not work as you expexted. the clientmqueue saves the mail not sent yet

Re: Rhel3 / e-mail / clientmqueue problem

joseph wholey — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:57:43 GMT

How do I "hunt down" the offending processes?

Re: Rhel3 / e-mail / clientmqueue problem

joseph wholey — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:14:07 GMT

Sendmail is working as expected (I believe). i.e. if someone is sending mail to a non existent address, sendmail will keep it in the clientmqueue and continue attempting to send for 5 days. Is there anything in the message that indicates where it is being generated from?