Orphaned, undelivered files in mqueue.in

[Julian Field]

At 20:36 09/01/2003, you wrote:
>The thought crossed my mind, and it may not even be unlikely. I think I
>found the cause of the problem. The time stamp of the orphaned files is
>about the same as these messages in the maillog:
>Jan  9 21:20:15 raveon MailScanner[30971]: MailScanner child caught a
>SIGHUP
>Jan  9 21:20:15 raveon MailScanner[30946]: MailScanner child caught a
>SIGHUP
>Jan  9 21:20:25 raveon sendmail[31137]: alias database /etc/aliases
>rebuilt by root
>Jan  9 21:20:25 raveon sendmail[31137]: /etc/aliases: 66 aliases, longest
>10 bytes, 658 bytes total
>Jan  9 21:20:25 raveon sendmail[31146]: starting daemon (8.12.5): SMTP
>Jan  9 21:20:25 raveon sendmail[31151]: starting daemon (8.12.5):
>queueing at 00:15:00
>Jan  9 21:20:26 raveon MailScanner[31162]: MailScanner
>Jan  9 21:20:27 raveon MailScanner[31162]: MailScanner E-Mail Virus
>Scanner version 4.11-1 starting...
>Jan  9 21:20:28 raveon MailScanner[31162]: Using locktype = flock
>
>But.... no reference to receiving any e-mail. I think sendmail is in the
>process of receiving the e-mail, which is not finished, hence no entry in
>the maillog and then MailScanner kills and restarts sendmail??
>
>Or does the sighup mean that something has crashed? I seem to have an
>awful lot of those :(
>
>Every 5 minutes!!!!

There is nothing in the code that would cause a SIGHUP every 5 minutes,
something external must be causing that. The only time the parent process
sends a SIGHUP to the children is when it is terminated with a "kill" command.

I carefully added code to 4.11 so that these orphaned files would not be
left behind. Can you just double-check you really have 4.11 and not 4.10
fragments anywhere? 4.11 has a "deletes pending" list which it will execute
if the process is HUP-ed during a "delete message" operation. So this
really shouldn't happen any more....

>If the sender's connection isn't all that fast it is very well possible
>that the mail transfer indeed gets killed before transmission is
>completed.
>
>I never had this SIGHUP problem with 4.10?
>
>On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Julian Field wrote:
>
> > It is possible that you merely got them for non-MailScanner related
> > problems, such as an SMTP client getting cut off half way through sending a
> > message. Sorry if that sounds like I'm passing the buck...
> >
> > At 17:17 09/01/2003, you wrote:
> > >This was the first thing I have checked. I took different parts of the
> > >numbers of these df files and grepped the maillog for it. Strangely enough
> > >I cannot find them. Also when browsing through the maillog and looking
> > >around the same date/time as these orphaned files in some cases there
> > >isn't any message whatsoever of mail being delivered / received.
> > >
> > >I have about 10 orphaned files in the mqueue.in, none in the outdir and
> > >they are all from yesterday and this morning. I know for sure that I
> > >didn't restart MailScanner last night or this morning. It's hardly
> > >possible that MailScanner would restart itself at exactly the same time as
> > >these 10 e-mails in 1,5 day? (This is a very low volume home server).
> > >
> > >On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Julian Field wrote:
> > >
> > > > At 16:08 09/01/2003, you wrote:
> > > > >Ever since I upgraded to MailScanner 4.11-1 yesterday I have several
> > > > >orphaned files that are piling up in mqueue.in
> > > > >
> > > > >The only files sitting there are the df files, without any other
> files.
> > > > >Also these messages have never been delivered to the intended
> recipient.
> > > > >
> > > > >Any ideas??
> > > > >
> > > > >Can I still get these df files delivered or extract them to make them
> > > > >readable?
> > > >
> > > > Check both your /var/spool/mqueue and your maillog to see if the
> message
> > > > ids have already been delivered (or at least placed in the outgoing
> queue).
> > > >
> > > > I thought I had fixed this in 4.11, but obviously not well enough.
> > > >
> > > > Do the times on the files correspond to times when you have done a
> > > > MailScanner "reload" or "restart"?
> > > > --
> > > > Julian Field
> > > > www.MailScanner.info
> > > > MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >--
> > >This message has been scanned for viruses and
> > >dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
> > >believed to be clean.
> >
> > --
> > Julian Field
> > www.MailScanner.info
> > MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
> >
> >
>
>
>--
>This message has been scanned for viruses and
>dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
>believed to be clean.

--
Julian Field
www.MailScanner.info
MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support