exiqgrep in detail

Exim includes a utility that is quite nice for grepping through the queue, called exiqgrep. Learn it. Know it. Live it. If you’re not using this, and if you’re not familiar with the various flags it uses, you’re probably doing things the hard way, like piping `exim -bp` into awk, grep, cut, or `wc -l`. Don’t make life harder than it already is.

First, various flags that control what messages are matched. These can be combined to come up with a very particular search.

Use -f to search the queue for messages from a specific sender:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -f [luser]@domain

Use -r to search the queue for messages for a specific recipient/domain:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -r [luser]@domain

Use -o to print messages older than the specified number of seconds. For example, messages older than 1 day:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -o 86400 [...]

Use -y to print messages that are younger than the specified number of seconds. For example, messages less than an hour old:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -y 3600 [...]

Use -s to match the size of a message with a regex. For example, 700-799 bytes:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -s '^7..$' [...]

Use -z to match only frozen messages, or -x to match only unfrozen messages.

There are also a few flags that control the display of the output.

Use -i to print just the message-id as a result of one of the above two searches:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -i [ -r | -f ] ...

Use -c to print a count of messages matching one of the above searches:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -c ...

Print just the message-id of the entire queue:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -i

MANAGING THE QUEUE

The main exim binary (/usr/sbin/exim) is used with various flags to make things happen to messages in the queue. Most of these require one or more message-IDs to be specified in the command line, which is where `exiqgrep -i` as described above really comes in handy.

Start a queue run:

root@localhost# exim -q -v

Start a queue run for just local deliveries:

root@localhost# exim -ql -v

Remove a message from the queue:

root@localhost# exim -Mrm <message-id> [ <message-id> ... ]

Freeze a message:

root@localhost# exim -Mf <message-id> [ <message-id> ... ]

Thaw a message:

root@localhost# exim -Mt <message-id> [ <message-id> ... ]

Deliver a message, whether it’s frozen or not, whether the retry time has been reached or not:

root@localhost# exim -M <message-id> [ <message-id> ... ]

Deliver a message, but only if the retry time has been reached:

root@localhost# exim -Mc <message-id> [ <message-id> ... ]

Force a message to fail and bounce as “cancelled by administrator”:

root@localhost# exim -Mg <message-id> [ <message-id> ... ]

Remove all frozen messages:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -z -i | xargs exim -Mrm

Remove all messages older than five days (86400 * 5 = 432000 seconds):

root@localhost# exiqgrep -o 432000 -i | xargs exim -Mrm

Freeze all queued mail from a given sender:

root@localhost# exiqgrep -i -f luser@example.tld | xargs exim -Mf

View a message’s headers:

root@localhost# exim -Mvh <message-id>

View a message’s body:

root@localhost# exim -Mvb <message-id>

View a message’s logs:

root@localhost# exim -Mvl <message-id>

Add a recipient to a message:

root@localhost# exim -Mar <message-id> <address> [ <address> ... ]

Edit the sender of a message:

root@localhost# exim -Mes <message-id> <address>