mail.log

[David Crowe]

Is there a way to create a new mail.log file? Ours has grown to the point where it is too large to open with vi. I tried copying it to a new file and then deleting the old one but when I stopped and started sendmail a new one was not created. I also tried creating a new file with the same name but it didn't appear that sendmail was writing to the log.

[James R. Ferguson]

David:

The proper way to nullify an inuse file is this:

# cat /dev/null > /var/adm/syslog/mail.log

You can do this while the sendmail daemon is running.

...JRF...

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

# > /var/adm/syslog/mail.log
or
#touch /var/adm/syslog/mail.log

[David Crowe]

Does this just stop logging to the mail.log or does it create a new mail.log?

[Vincenzo Restuccia · Accepted solution]

No stop logging to the mail.log,you can create a new mail.log.

[Pedro Sousa]

Nope, it does not stop logging to mail.log, but it cleans what you had inside the file until that point in time.

[David Crowe]

Mail transactions are no longer being put into my mail.log file. Is there a simple way to correct this?

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi David:

If you removed /var/adm/syslog/mail.log instead of redirecting /dev/null to it, then restart sendmail:

# /sbin/init.d/sendmail stop
# /sbin/init.d/sendmail start

...JRF...

[Jim Moffitt_1]

You could stop and start sendmail:
/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop
/sbin/init.d/sendmail start

and also give your syslog daemon a restart:

kill -HUP `cat /var/run/syslog.pid`

Hope that helps.

Jim

[David Crowe]

I have already tried stopping and starting sendmail but it did not fix the problem. I will try stopping the syslog daemon and see if that does the trick.