Delete Qmail Server messages Queue

Kasinath Kottukkal

Delete Qmail Server messages Queue

qmail is a mail transfer agent that runs on Unix. It was more secure replacement for the popular Sendmail program. The author offered a $500 prize for the first person to publish a verifiable security hole in the latest version of the software.

This is a useful thing to do in a number of situations. For instance, if you are hit with a spamming attack, you can temporarily instate a second Qmail installation (once the spam run is finished), allow it to take over mail receipt,and then use this tool to clean the offending mails out of the queue before switching over to the main Qmail installation once again.

Occasionally, viruses will get past scanners before the signatures get updated; if they exist in large numbers, it is often practical to stop the Qmail install briefly in order to clean out all messages containing a signature related to the virus.

Whatever the reason to pull items from your mail queue, this program will delete them in such a manner that will let you restore them easily.

Here we are going to see different Technics how to delete or remove your qmail server queue

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1)You can edit the /var/qmail/control/queuelifetime file this is the file to control how long a message stays in a queue.Just put a number (to represent seconds)in this file.By default 86400 sec Will keep the mail for 1 day and expire after that.Here you can change this value to 1 and restart your qmail server it should clear your qmail queue.

2)Deleting mails from qmail queue

Following commands can delete all mails from your qmail mail server queue.

qmailctl stop
find /var/qmail/queue/mess -type f -exec rm {} \;
find /var/qmail/queue/info -type f -exec rm {} \;
find /var/qmail/queue/local -type f -exec rm {} \;
find /var/qmail/queue/intd -type f -exec rm {} \;
find /var/qmail/queue/todo -type f -exec rm {} \;
find /var/qmail/queue/remote -type f -exec rm {} \;