Emergency: Cleaning the Active Queue
January 7, 2010 Troubleshooting
What do you do when you massive overload of unwanted mail that is coming to your server? Recently I saw a Postfix Mail server that had gone down some months ago but had 10s of thousands of email ready to be sent. When it was repaired it began sending tons of old mail….mail that was simply not needed to send any longer. This is a situation where you need to solve things fast.
The mailq command showed many thousands of mail being sent out. When the deferred queue was examined it was clear….all the mail was in the active queue. It looked something like this:
[root@mail postfix]# ls active/
001072081CF 289032080DA 50C8B2081EE 7D8B6208169 A3B14208235 CAD4F20823A
007D9208259 28D1E2080F5 50F662081BA 7DEEB20813A A3D0920813F CBC242081AE
009D82080EF 2A7C3208199 51FD020822B 7E24A208283 A3D1C208251 CC806208109
00CD9208274 2B02520812C 549E7208134 7EE6F208266 A4137208104 CCC81208125
01ED5208222 2B1B420825F 54B4A208183 7EEF3208213 A48A02081FA CD05E2080EC
02BB420815D 2B2BF208209 551A42080FA 7F5492081F4 A58B1208120 CE523208191
0341F208110 2BB272081E9 569992081EF 7FFA8208150 A627D20816C CE564208145
034C4208174 2CABC208296 56C1520814A 802FC2081D9 A6BC0208288 CEAE2208256
0388C20823F 2CFC820817B 56C4E208249 8209A2081F5 A6F7F208218 CF33320826F
041CA208194 2D11F207BC3 56C7820819F 826D52081A4 A7B112081C5 CFDA2208144
046AC208195 2D6B8208279 56F792080E0 82D05208100 A82832081AA CFEB72081D2
04A792081B4 2ED842080DB 5757520829A 8305F208231 A8F4B208140 D00B920828D
05366208205 2F2FB2080F6 57EE520822C 83304208188 AA6B52081FB D05C520821D
05BC320812B 2F32420817C 57FBF208165 84BB4208151 AA6EA20818C D2D632081AF
064F4208147 2FCE520820A 58B372081BB 8536620811C AA9C92080E9 D35ED2080A7
065782080D7 30C4B20812F 5995E2081F0 853B3208267 AAB0E208252 D3603208200
066922081D0 32145208245 59C5C20827F 859CD207BB6 AAD5B208219 D4CBB20810A
066A020825A 324CF208260 5D28E20822D 85C312080E4 AB15E2080CD D4FF02080ED
067F7208273 324DB20817D 5D6A1208264 861D6208214 AB2CD208289 D55AA2081DF
075722080F0 3285220819A 5DC22208280 862C220813B AB5AF208121 D5805208159
09D6120815E 3291320820B 5DE27208118 86C6E2081C0 AC639208105 D5950207BC2
09DB6208293 32AF3208149 5DE4B2081D5 877C620824E ACE222081C6 D63E7208126
The solution, though it is dangerous, was to delete all mail in the active queue as it was considered safer to get rid of all mail than to send thousands of old email to other servers.
rm -f /var/spool/postfix/active/*
This should only be considered a last resort, but …nice to have the option when needed.
