RHEL 3, sendmail and lock type

[Julian Field]

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Jens Ahlin wrote:
>> Jens Ahlin wrote:
>>     
>>> So what you are saying is that flock is the one to use. The reason for
>>> asking is that broken queue files are building up in the mqueue.in
>>> directory, only the df files are present not the qf files. I don't know
>>> if
>>> this is related to a new problem causing messages to be delayed several
>>> hours. ( in the maillog I see A LOT of "SpamAssassin cache hit for
>>> message" for the messages that gets delayed. ) The server is not busy,
>>> load average < 0.3. Mail is not lost, just delayed, the broken queue
>>> files
>>> are all junk mail.
>>>       
>> yes... that happens. I'm on CentOS 4.6 which uses the stock redhat
>> sendmail 8.13.1. I'm using posix locking (correct for 8.13) but still
>> see a slow build up of df files. I have a script that cleans up these
>> files which I run a couple of times a year.
>>
>> I have been told that this was a bug in older versions of sendmail and I
>> assume that RH never bothered to backport the patch. However, I can't
>> confirm that.
>>
>> It has never been a problem for me - I'm 99.9% certain that the broken
>> messages are actually dealt with correctly, just not properly cleaned up.
>>
>> here's my bash script:
>>
>> #!/bin/bash
>> # clean up orphaned df* files in mqueue.in
>> # no known cause for these files yet.
>>
>> /etc/init.d/MailScanner stop
>>
>> sleep 2
>> dir="/var/spool/mqueue.in"
>>
>> file=`find $dir -mtime +1`
>> for i in ${file}
>>      do m=`basename ${i}`
>>      j=${m:2}
>>      if [ ! -e "${dir}/qf${j}" ]; then
>>          mv ${i} /var/tmp/
>>          fi
>>      done
>> echo
>> df -hl
>>
>> /etc/init.d/MailScanner start
>>
>> exit 0
>>
>>
>>     
>>> I have flock specified in MailScanner.conf. If I change to default value
>>> "Lock Type = " mail is still processed and delivered using POSIX.
>>>
>>> Any ideas ?
>>>
>>>      Jens
>>>       
>> --
>> Greg Matthews           01491 692445
>> Head of UNIX/Linux, iTSS Wallingford
>>
>> --
>>     
>
> Ok. Thanks for the info. I'll try to pursue the delay problem and just
> ignore the orphaned df files. I think I have found a message that somewhat
> confuses mailscanner, I have to test this further during low traffic
> hours. I have a set of qf/df files that maybe is the culprit.
>   
I'm always interested to hear of specific messages that cause problems. 
Narrow down the problem as far as you can, then send me a link to the 
message queue files along with what the problem is, and I'll take a look.

I've not got much planned for this weekend.

Jules

- -- 
Julian Field MEng CITP CEng
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