/var/mail filling up

[Mike Kercher]

Dave Filchak wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have a bit of an issue building on my main mail server. I hope
> these are appropriate to this list because I am thinking that it has
> something to do with MailScanner/MailWatch. If it is not, my
> apologies.
>
> My /var/ partition is filled almost to capacity and so I am trying to
> resolve this issue for very obvious reasons. A couple of things that
> perhaps someone here can help with.
>
> Problem #1::
> When I run the command mailq, it says that /var/spool/mqueue is empty.
> However, there is 182 mb of mail in that directory. When I run mailq
> -OQueueDirectory=/var/spool/mqueue.in it says that the mqueue.in
> directory is also empty. but there is 44k worth of mail in there. So
> my questions is why the commands show these to be empty when they are
> not and how can I resolve this?
>
> Problem #2::
> The server was never initially set up with quotas and so there are a
> good number of my email clients that leave messages on the server and
> fail to practice good housekeeping. So my question is: Is there a way
> to initiate directory quotas on the mail spool (or file size quotas
> perhaps being more correct?) after the fact? Is it considered ethical
> to delete mail in users mailboxes that are older than say 2 or three
> months?
>
> I have less than 5% space left on this partition and so this is a
> matter of some urgency. Again, if this is inappropriate for this
> list, please accept my apologies in advance.
>
> Dave
>

I try to get my users to NOT leave mail on the server.  I don't offer IMAP
for a reason.  Depending on your POP3 daemon, you can force the users to
delete mail upon checking.  I use cucipop and it has options to allow this.
It basically forces the user to download their entire mail file each time.
They will get tired of getting ALL of their old mail over and over and
finally fix their MUA.  For users that refuse to comply, I will delete their
mail file right after I see them check it.

For problem #1, you could look at the timestamps on the files in question.
Also, see if there are matching qf/df pairs.  If they are obscenely old,
just delete them.

Now, for the /var partition filling up, you *could* move /var/spool/mail to
another partition with adequate space and then symlink /var/spool/mail to
the new location.  Are you pruning your quarantine at all?

Mike

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