Rosenbaum, Larry M. wrote: >Where can I find some documentation about the usage of the directories under >/var/spool/mailman, and how to manage the files in those directories? I think >it might be useful to monitor the number of files and send a report if the >backlog gets too big, and to be able to remove or hold messages.
First of all, if you have directories in /var/spool/mailman/ instead of $var_prefix/qfiles, you have installed Mailman from a package, probably RedHat/CentOS, so see the FAQ at <http://wiki.list.org/x/OIDD>. There are normally 10 directories, 8 of which are the input queues for the 8 qrunner processes that do all of Mailman's message handling. These 8 are: archive - queue for ArchRunner bounces - queue for BounceRunner commands - queue for CommandRunner in - queue for IncomingRunner news - queue for NewsRunner out - queue for OutgoingRunner retry - queue for RetryRunner virgin - queue for VirginRunner There are two more directories for storage of messages that encounter some kind of error in processing. bad - place for preservation of unprocessable queue entries shunt - place for storage of entries for messages that throw uncaught exceptions in processing The files in these queue directories are all Python pickles. Mailman's bin/show_qfiles will show the message content of one or more of these files. Mailman's bin/dumpdb will show both the message content and the metadata for a single file at a time. Normally, if all the qrunners are running, the eight queue directories should be empty or nearly so. In some installations, the out/ queue becomes backlogged. This may indicate a serious problem in SMTP between OutgoingRunner and the outgoing MTA which needs to be fixed, normally by eliminating various address validations for remote addresses at SMTP time. It could indicate that you've installed the throttling patch linked from <http://wiki.list.org/x/j4A9> and your settings don't allow for fast enough message delivery. For more information on the bad and shunt directories, see the ##### # Qrunner defaults ##### section in Defaults.py, particularly the documentation for the settings QRUNNER_SAVE_BAD_MESSAGES = Yes BAD_SHUNT_STALE_AFTER = days(7) BAD_SHUNT_ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY = None For reporting, see the mmdsr and README.mmdsr files at <http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~mailman-coders/mailman/2.1/files/head:/contrib/> (I don't think RedHat distributes this with their package). If you have other questions about this, ask more specifically. -- Mark Sapiro <[email protected]> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org
