Mail going to /var/spool/mqueue instead of being sent

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

Hello,

I have a bunch of cron jobs in the crontab. For some reason mail from the cron jobs started going to /var/spool/mqueue instead of being sent.

Does anyone know why mail from cron jobs would go to the queue instead of being sent?

2

Suppose the remote system was down. What else could your system do?

3

It's not being mailed to a remote system. It is being mailed to the "root" account on the local system.

4

I believe I have figured out the problem. I found the following in the Sendmail man page:

# Queue-Only Load Average (option QueueLA): #
# #
# In order to limit load on a very busy system, sendmail can be #
# configured to queue up low priority messages rather than attempt #
# delivery immediately if the five-minute load average is greater #
# than some integer value, by default 8. This value is defined on #
# the line beginning O QueueLA=. #
# #
# Refuse-Connections Load Average (option RefuseLA): #
# #
# In order to limit load on a very busy system, the sendmail daemon #
# can be configured not to accept SMTP connections if the five- #
# minute load average is greater than some integer value, by #
# default 12. This value is defined on the line beginning #
# O RefuseLA=

The load average on my server is at about 22 so mail is being queued instead of sent. I'll have to set the RefuseLA and QueueLA values higher in the Sendmail config file.

5

22! Sounds like you need a bigger server!

6

Hi,
I have the same problem. Do I need to change sendmail.cf
Should I uncomment the line for the O RefuseLA=
and RefuseLA.
thank you
tanya

7

The "mailq" command should tell you why the items are queued.
Obviously check free disc space.
The "sendmail -q" command might wake it up if mail is "deferred".

8

I see the following error
mailhost.dbd.com: host name lookup failure

When I try to execute
# /usr/lib/sendmail -q -v

thank you

  • t

or

# /usr/lib/sendmail -OQueueLA=100 -q -v
Edit/Delete Message

9

Hi,
I have warning when I run
/usr/lib/sendmail -q -v
Warning: .cf file is out of date: sendmail 8.11.7p3+Sun supports version 9, .cf file is version 8

Have you ever seen that before?
Thank you.

10

Try putting mailhost.dbd.com in /etc/hosts with its IP address (or into your DNS if that is how your site runs).