I've noticed that my sendmail daemon has loads (57,000+) files in it's mqueue directory.  I'm also getting lots of "grew WorkList for /var/spool/mqueue to 5000" type messages in my logs.  I guess these log messages are related in some manner to the huge number of old messages in the mqueue dir.

I was just looking at some of these messages and they date back quite a while.    Back to June etc.  Why has sendmail not purged these failed or delayed messages?

I also note that I get quite a lot of:

sendmail[29533]: i6IGZcl12816: to=<er@deeper.co.nz>, delay=49+11:13:30, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=cyrus, pri=121373, relay=localhost, dsn=5.1.1, stat=User unknown
sendmail[29533]: i6IGZcl12816: i863nAl29533: DSN: User unknown
sendmail[29533]: i863nAl29533: to=<paulfrenchvn@base.yonsei.ac.kr>, delay=00:00:03, xdelay=00:00:03, mailer=esmtp, pri=31301, relay=base.yonsei.ac.kr. [165.132.77.200], dsn=5.1.1, stat=User unknown
sendmail[29533]: i863nAl29533: i863nAm29533: return to sender: User unknown
sendmail[29533]: i863nAm29533: to=postmaster, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=cyrus, pri=31401, relay=localhost [[UNIX: /var/imap/socket/lmtp]], dsn=5.6.0, stat=Service unavailable
sendmail[29533]: i863nAl29533: Losing ./qfi863nAl29533: savemail panic
sendmail[29533]: i863nAl29533: SYSERR(root): savemail: cannot save rejected email anywhere

Fortunately this is primarily because of spam but shouldn't the double bounce at least be delivered to postmaster on hostility?  I set up a specific account for postmaster on our cyrus IMAP server.  And it certainly gets a lot of other spam and virus bounces.

Perhaps this is all related somehow?  Anyone here experience in the black art of sendmail who might be able to enlighten me?

Regards

-- Oliver Jones » Director » oliver@deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 Deeper Design Limited » +64 (7) 377 3328 » www.deeperdesign.com