[Mailman-Users] qfiles?

[Brad Knowles]

At 2:19 PM +0200 2005-10-03, Kris Gybels wrote:

>           I'm looking into this problem but my knowledge of mailman is
>  limited so I have questions, one is: what is the "qfiles" folder for?

	That's where Mailman stores messages that it is working on.

>  Is it normal for this folder to contain about 10000 .msg and
>  10000 .db files?

	No.  That's a bad sign.  A very bad sign.

>                    Based on the name I would assume this is the queue
>  of unsent messages, and I would expect it to only contain messages
>  that still have to be sent, the fact that there are files still in
>  there might explain or missing mails option, though it's not like
>  10000 messages got lost ... but still, what is qfiles for then and
>  does it really need to be so big??

	You've clearly got a serious problem with your MTA, and with this 
many files in your qfiles subdirectory, that means you now have a 
problem just listing the directory contents or accessing any one 
particular directory entry.

	You need to flush the queue, and get these messages delivered. 
Or, you need to move them aside, and just live with the fact that you 
had problems in the past, and that there was nothing you could do 
about them.


	But one way or the other, if you want to return to any kind of 
normal operations, you've got to get these queues cleared.

	Moreover, once they are clear, you should stop Mailman, move the 
directories aside and create new ones by the same names (with the 
same ownership and permissions), and restart Mailman.

	The reasons are somewhat complex, having to do with the nature of 
the way that filesystems are implemented on computers.  If you want 
to learn more about this topic, you need to search the Mailman FAQ 
Wizard for "performance", and then follow the links to the 
documentation and books that are recommended.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.