mailq Command

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Purpose

Prints the contents of the mail queue.

Syntax

/usr/sbin/mailq [ -v ]

Description

The mailq and MAILQ commands print a list of messages that are in the mail queue. The first line printed for each message shows:
  • The internal identifier used on this host for the message with a possible status character
  • The size of the message in bytes
  • The date and time the message is accepted into the queue
  • the envelope sender of the message

The second line shows the error message that caused the message to be retained in the in the queue, it is not displayed if the message is being displayed for the first time. The status characters are either:

*
Indicates the job is being processed
X
Indicates that the load is too high to process the job
-
Indicates that the job is too young to process

The following lines show message recipients, one per line.

The mailq command is the same as the sendmail -bp command.

Specify the -v flag to display message priority.

Flags

Item Description
-v Prints verbose information. This adds the priority of the message and a single character indicator (+ or blank) indicating wheather a warning message has been sent on the first line of the message. Additionally, extra lines may be intermixed with the recipents indicating the controlling user information; this shows who owns any program that are executed on behalf of this message and the name of the alias this command expanded from, if any.

Exit Status

The command returns the following exit values:

Item Description
0 Exits successfully.
>0 An error occurred.

Examples

The mailq command prints two types of lists:

  • The mailq command lists the mail queue as shown in the following example: 
         Mail Queue (1 request)
---QID---- --Size-- -----Q-Time----- ------Sender/Recipient-----
AA02508        3    Thu Dec 17 10:01            root
            (User unknown)
                                     bad_user
  • The mailq -v command lists the mail queue as follows: 
         Mail Queue (1 request) 
---QID---- --Size-- -Priority- ---Q-Time--- --Sender/Recipient--
AA02508        3      1005     Dec 17 10:01        root
            (User unknown)
                                            bad_user

The fields have the following meanings:

Item Description
QID Contains the message queue ID of the message.
Size Contains the number of bytes in the body of the message (heading information not included).
Priority Contains the priority of the message, based primarily on the size of the message.
Q-Time Contains the time the message entered the queue.
Sender/Recipient Contains the user ID of the sender and the recipient of the message. A message on the line between the sender and the recipient indicates the status of the message.

Files

Item Description
/usr/sbin/mailq Contains the mailq command.
/var/spool/mqueue directory Contains the log file and temporary files associated with the messages in the mail queue.