1/df: entries=34
/var/spool/mqueues/q.2/df: entries=51
Total requests: 85
Here, 85 is the number of envelopes currently awaiting delivery in sendmail??™s queues.
But note that some shared memory timeouts can lead to an inexact count. In this latter
event, the output looks like this:
Total requests: 85 (about)
If you lack shared memory support, and you are running pre-V8.12 sendmail, you
can still summarize the number of messages in all queues with a simple substitute
command:
% mailq -OMaxQueueRunSize=0
This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition
Copyright ?© 2007 O??™Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
426 | Chapter 11: Manage the Queue
11.7 How the Queue Is Processed
Over time, messages can gather in the queue awaiting delivery. They remain there
until sendmail performs a queue run to process the queue. The sendmail program can
be told either to process the queue periodically (when run as a daemon) or to process
the queue once, and then exit. Each time sendmail processes the queue, it also
performs a series of operations that are intended to improve the efficiency with
which it delivers messages.
First the queue directory is opened for reading. If that directory cannot be opened,
sendmail syslog(3)s the following message at LOG_CRIT and exits:
cannot opendir(/var/queue): reason here
This error is usually the result of a user running sendmail in an unsafe manner, witha
-C command-line argument, for example.
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