Linux – Remove messages from sendmail queue matching subject

centoslinuxsendmail

I'm running centos and have a rediculous amount of emails in the mailqueue due to a script error. Is there any way to remove messages that have a certain subject line in sendmail's mailqueue.

Best Answer

This worked for me just now, in testing (which is why it has such a weird subject line embedded in the code). It relies on the fact that the two files that make up a message in sendmail queue share the same filename except for the first character.

cd /var/spool/mqueue
for file in `grep "Subject:.*litigate gasworks" *|cut -f 1 -d:|cut -c2-`; do echo *${file} ; done

Once you're happy with the list of files it produces, change echo to rm. Don't forget to stop sendmail before you mess with its queue like this; it may become surly if the queue changes underneath it.

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Linux – Can I Nohup/Screen an Already-Started Process?

If you're using Bash, you can run disown -h job

disown
disown [-ar] [-h] [jobspec ...]
Without options, each jobspec is removed from the table of active jobs. If the -h option is given, the job is not removed from the table, but is marked so that SIGHUP is not sent to the job if the shell receives a SIGHUP. If jobspec is not present, and neither the -a nor -r option is supplied, the current job is used. If no jobspec is supplied, the -a option means to remove or mark all jobs; the -r option without a jobspec argument restricts operation to running jobs.

Sendmail – How to Permanently Delete E-mail Messages in the Queue

The messages that have been sent or are trying to be sent are stored in /var/spool/mqueue. Messages that Sendmail has not tried to queue yet can be found in /var/spool/mqueue-client.

So try this (I assume you want to get rid of all messages in the queue):

Stop sendmail
rm /var/spool/mqueue/*
If you want to remove messages in waiting, rm /var/spool/mqueue-client/*.
Start sendmail

This will clear our your queue folder(s) until the system receives another message. You can double check by running mailq (both queue folders), or sendmail -bp (only the queue folder).

NOTE: With most Linux distributions you can start/stop services with with service sendmail <start|stop|restart> or /etc/init.d/sendmail <start|stop|restart>. Both options have many other status flags which can be observed by typing in the command and service without the status flags.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – Can I Nohup/Screen an Already-Started Process?

Sendmail – How to Permanently Delete E-mail Messages in the Queue

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