Stopping mail messages to users when root cancels or move a lp request

[Steve Blackwell]

Does any one know if it's possible to stop users receiveing mail messages when root cancels or moves their lp requests?

The system is running 11.11 and all the print queues are remote.

Cheers

Steve

[rariasn]

He Steve,

Posibly the /var fs is full.
Create a independent FS for "spool" and "mail". Samples,

# bdf /var/spool
Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on
/dev/vg00/lvvarspool
16384 2353 13213 15% /var/spool

#bdf /var/mail
Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on
/dev/vg00/lvvarmail
16384 4466 11194 29% /var/mail

rgs,
ran

[Steve Blackwell]

I don't have a problem with my /var filesystem filling up.

The users don't need to see these mail messages as they dont have interactive shells, so I would like to stop them being sent if possible.

Cheers

Steve

[Peter Godron]

Steve,
I have tried the following:
User A submits a lp request
Root cancels that request

Result:
root gets a request "printer-22" cancelled, but User A didn't get a message.

Also found:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=973351

[spex]

Which switches is lp being called with by your users? From 'man lp':

-m Send a mail message (see mail(1)). to the user after the request has been printed. By default, no mail is sent upon normal completion of the print request.

-w Write a message to the user's terminal after the request has been printed. If the user is not logged in or (for remote printing) if rlpdaemon (see rlpdaemon(1M)) is not running on the user's local system, mail will be sent instead.

PCS

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

The message is not created by the lp command, it is being created by the cancel command and unfortunately, there is no option in the lp spooler to suppress the cancel message. The original reason for the design is to inform the user who may have cancelled their print job, but the majority of users on HP-UX do not read or use email on HP-UX.

If you want to remove all email messages for specific users, you cxan use /etc/mail/aliases and add each user to the alias list like this:

bill : /dev/null
cheryl : /dev/null
jill : /dev/null
tim : /dev/null
...etc...

and now all messages sent to these users will be dumped. Be sure to run the newaliases command after changing the aliases file.

[Steve Blackwell]

Thanks for your input, it seems I am stuck with the cancel and move mail messages.

Unfortunately I do need to see the output from the at command (bad application programming) so I can't really do mail aliases to /dev/null.

Cheers

Steve

[Geoff Wild]

Sorry to pipe in late - but I have a service request into HP on this - they have been working on it and I will be beta testing the patch any day now (soon as they release it to me).

After that, they said if it is satisfactory - it should be publicly available end of July.

Let me know if you want to be kept up to date.

Rgds...Geoff

[Steve Blackwell]

Yes, I would like to be kept updated on the service request.

Cheers

Steve