Re: qmailqueue

"Robert Leonard III" <the.bobkat@verizon.net> writes:

> I have a qmailqueue that states that I have 97 messages in it.. this number
> occasionally adds another but never seems to decrease. I believe these to
> be undeliverable emails as normal mail operations appear to be working.. I
> see this when I do a qmailctl stat command..

"qmailctl queue" will show you more information about these messages.

> is there any way to flush this queue or just plain delete it?

"qmailctl flush" will cause qmail to schedule all messages for an
immediate delivery attempt. If they're undeliverable, that won't
help. You can wait until queuelifetime has passed and the messages
will bounce automatically. If you really can't wait, you can stop
qmail, remove the messages from the queue (perhaps using qmhandle from
qmail.org), then restart qmail.

--
Dave Sill Oak Ridge National Lab, Workstation Support
Author, The qmail Handbook <http://web.infoave.net/~dsill>
<http://lifewithqmail.org/>: Almost everything you always wanted to know.

Hello:

I have a similar problem - I am running Plesk with Qmail, and i have approx
5,500 messages in the queue. they are stuck!! it seems that its all
spam....the processes are:

qmailr 2705 0.0 0.0 1248 464 ? S 22:17 0:00 qmail-remote
beer.com gnflkgfkl@telekbird.com.cn
qmailr 3032 0.0 0.0 1248 464 ? S 22:21 0:00 qmail-remote
beer.com nnjfklk@catolico.net shado
qmailr 3062 0.0 0.0 1248 464 ? S 22:21 0:00 qmail-remote
mail.dotcom.fr dkbjk@mail.dotcom.f
qmailr 3141 0.0 0.0 1248 464 ? S 22:22 0:00 qmail-remote
beer.com dkbfskjf@kahkaha.com cynth
qmailr 3386 0.0 0.0 1248 464 ? S 22:27 0:00 qmail-remote
beer.com dbfkj@mailasia.com d_sing@
qmailr 3406 0.0 0.0 1248 464 ? S 22:28 0:00 qmail-remote
beer.com kjsdfk@vol.vnn.vn bnewman_
qmailr 3457 0.0 0.0 1248 464 ? S 22:30 0:00 qmail-remote
beer.com jgkjfb@163.net bnewton2@be

I did a find * -name qmailctl and can't find it on the
server................

can anyone suggest how i can get these messages going again? incoming mail
is fine.

Thank you!!!

"Dave Sill" <MaxFreedom@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> wrote in message
news:wx0n0g4agmn.fsf@sws5.ornl.gov...
> "Robert Leonard III" <the.bobkat@verizon.net> writes:
>
> > I have a qmailqueue that states that I have 97 messages in it.. this
number
> > occasionally adds another but never seems to decrease. I believe these
to
> > be undeliverable emails as normal mail operations appear to be working..
I
> > see this when I do a qmailctl stat command..
>
> "qmailctl queue" will show you more information about these messages.
>
> > is there any way to flush this queue or just plain delete it?
>
> "qmailctl flush" will cause qmail to schedule all messages for an
> immediate delivery attempt. If they're undeliverable, that won't
> help. You can wait until queuelifetime has passed and the messages
> will bounce automatically. If you really can't wait, you can stop
> qmail, remove the messages from the queue (perhaps using qmhandle from
> qmail.org), then restart qmail.
>
> --
> Dave Sill Oak Ridge National Lab, Workstation Support
> Author, The qmail Handbook <http://web.infoave.net/~dsill>
> <http://lifewithqmail.org/>: Almost everything you always wanted to know.

"Peter Pietrzkiewicz" <peter@webcanada.com> writes:

> I have a similar problem - I am running Plesk with Qmail, and i have approx
> 5,500 messages in the queue. they are stuck!!

What makes you think they're stuck?

> it seems that its all spam....

Incoming spam? Outgoing spam? Bounces from undeliverable incoming
spam? Are you an open relay?

>the processes are:

Processes aren't messages. Have you looked at the messages and the
qmail-send logs to try to figure out where they're coming from?

> I did a find * -name qmailctl and can't find it on the
> server................

qmailctl is a script I wrote and published in "Life with qmail" and
the _The qmail Handbook_. You can grab a copy from:

http://www.lifewithqmail.org/qmailctl-script-dt70

And either adapt it to your installation or just look at the commands
it executes for the various functions.

> can anyone suggest how i can get these messages going again?

Chances are good that they're not really stuck--they're just not
deliverable, either temporarily or permanently.

--
Dave Sill Oak Ridge National Lab, Workstation Support
Author, The qmail Handbook <http://web.infoave.net/~dsill>
<http://lifewithqmail.org/>: Almost everything you always wanted to know.

Hey Dave:

Thank you for your reply.

I will download your script and install it on my server.

The reason I think they are "stuck" is, yesterday, for example, I had about
5,500 messages in the queue and in about two hours, NONE of them went out.
In fact, the number of messages was steadily increasing, and it stopped
"preprocessing" messages, because that number grew as well.

I'm down to about 4,800 messages now, which I think are all undeliverable
outgoing spam. I'm going to give it a bit and see if they timeout.

Are you familiar with Plesk? I made sure the server was set not to be an
open relay, but it seems that somehow people may still be using this server
to spam. I enabled sending mail with SMTP authentication only yesterday, to
see if that will fix the problem.

So, while it seems like the problem may have "fixed itself", I'm not sure I
know what to do when this happens next time, and messages are piling up.

Thank you again for your reply, I appreciate it --- I'm one step above a
UNIX-newbie. :-)

Peter.

"Dave Sill" <MaxFreedom@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> wrote in message
news:wx0fzlprrmj.fsf@sws5.ornl.gov...
> "Peter Pietrzkiewicz" <peter@webcanada.com> writes:
>
> > I have a similar problem - I am running Plesk with Qmail, and i have
approx
> > 5,500 messages in the queue. they are stuck!!
>
> What makes you think they're stuck?
>
> > it seems that its all spam....
>
> Incoming spam? Outgoing spam? Bounces from undeliverable incoming
> spam? Are you an open relay?
>
> >the processes are:
>
> Processes aren't messages. Have you looked at the messages and the
> qmail-send logs to try to figure out where they're coming from?
>
> > I did a find * -name qmailctl and can't find it on the
> > server................
>
> qmailctl is a script I wrote and published in "Life with qmail" and
> the _The qmail Handbook_. You can grab a copy from:
>
> http://www.lifewithqmail.org/qmailctl-script-dt70
>
> And either adapt it to your installation or just look at the commands
> it executes for the various functions.
>
> > can anyone suggest how i can get these messages going again?
>
> Chances are good that they're not really stuck--they're just not
> deliverable, either temporarily or permanently.
>
> --
> Dave Sill Oak Ridge National Lab, Workstation Support
> Author, The qmail Handbook <http://web.infoave.net/~dsill>
> <http://lifewithqmail.org/>: Almost everything you always wanted to know.

"Peter Pietrzkiewicz" <peter@webcanada.com> writes:

> The reason I think they are "stuck" is, yesterday, for example, I had about
> 5,500 messages in the queue and in about two hours, NONE of them went out.

Did none go out because none were deliverable or because qmail didn't
try to send any?

> In fact, the number of messages was steadily increasing, and it stopped
> "preprocessing" messages, because that number grew as well.

What does qmail-qstat say?

> I'm down to about 4,800 messages now, which I think are all undeliverable
> outgoing spam. I'm going to give it a bit and see if they timeout.

You can look at them with qmail-qread.

> Are you familiar with Plesk? I made sure the server was set not to be an
> open relay, but it seems that somehow people may still be using this server
> to spam. I enabled sending mail with SMTP authentication only yesterday, to
> see if that will fix the problem.

Are you running a web server on the same system? Does it have a
formmail CGI? Many of those are broken an allow relaying.

> So, while it seems like the problem may have "fixed itself", I'm not sure I
> know what to do when this happens next time, and messages are piling up.

You need to figure out what's happening: where the messages are coming
from and why they're not being delivered. The messages and logs will
answer those questions.

> Thank you again for your reply, I appreciate it --- I'm one step above a
> UNIX-newbie. :-)

You're welcome. Glad to help.

--
Dave Sill Oak Ridge National Lab, Workstation Support
Author, The qmail Handbook <http://web.infoave.net/~dsill>
<http://lifewithqmail.org/>: Almost everything you always wanted to know.