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/VAR/SPOOL/MAIL question

 
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# 1  
Old 02-03-2009
/VAR/SPOOL/MAIL question
Hi,

We have all the user account in a home direcory where their mail is stored and retrieved by email clients. We do however have /var/spool/mail with all the user accounts in it as well Our sendmail.cf is configured to use /var/spool/mqueue as the queue so .what is /var/spool/mail being used for? I ask since I see files in it....
Last edited by mojoman; 02-03-2009 at 06:50 PM..
# 2  
Old 02-04-2009
The mqueue is usually the outbound queue. Mails sent via sendmail get queued here until sendmail can deliver them to the next mail hop. If there are lots of mails getting queued here, it's because there's a sendmail configuration or network problem. Mails delivered locally should go to /var/spool/mail.
# 3  
Old 02-04-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by otheus
The mqueue is usually the outbound queue. Mails sent via sendmail get queued here until sendmail can deliver them to the next mail hop. If there are lots of mails getting queued here, it's because there's a sendmail configuration or network problem. Mails delivered locally should go to /var/spool/mail.
Okay so mqueue.in is the inbound queue then?

By "mails delivered locally" what do you mean more precisely?

I am new to this and have been asked to free up disk space so I am trying to learn. I was told to clean up /var/spool/mail but I am not sure what I can safely erase.
# 4  
Old 02-04-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by mojoman
I am new to this and have been asked to free up disk space so I am trying to learn. I was told to clean up /var/spool/mail but I am not sure what I can safely erase.
<sarcasm> Just rm -rf /var/spool/mail </sarcasm>

As in, don't do that. Seriously, is your group/department/company using /var/spool/mail for any of their mail?

I'm not sure what mqueue.in refers to.
 
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