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I have a server with multiple domains. How can I clear all Postfix queue messages for a specific domain?

Tarek
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6 Answers6

26

UPDATE 2021-04-18:

mailq | tail -n +2 | grep -v '^ *(' | awk  'BEGIN { RS = "" } { if ($8 ~ /@example\.com/ && $9 == "") print $1 }' | tr -d '*!' | postsuper -d -

Whereas $7=sender, $8=recipient1, $9=recipient2. You can also adapt the rule for other recipients ($9) to your needs.

The command is based on an example of the postsuper manpage which an example command matching a full recipient mail address:

mailq | tail -n +2 | grep -v '^ *(' | awk  'BEGIN { RS = "" } { if ($8 == "user@example.com" && $9 == "") print $1 }' | tr -d '*!' | postsuper -d -

Old content:

This command deletes all mails sent from or to addresses that end with @example.com:

sudo mailq | tail -n +2 | awk 'BEGIN { RS = "" } /@example\.com$/ { print $1 }' | tr -d '*!' | sudo postsuper -d -
sebix
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11

Grep solution

mailq | grep example.com -B1 | grep -oE "^[A-Z0-9]{10,11}" | sudo postsuper -d -

assumes ID is between 10 and 11 digits, (based on inodes)

Jacob Evans
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8

I have tried this solution in ubuntu 12.04, and it doesn't work this way:

sudo mailq | tail +2 | awk 'BEGIN { RS = "" } / @example\.com$/ { print $1 }' | tr -d '*!' | sudo postsuper -d -

I need to change to this way:

postqueue -p | tail -n +2 | awk 'BEGIN { RS = "" } /@example\.com/ { print $1 }' | tr -d '*!' | postsuper -d -
masegaloeh
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Clemente Acosta
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2

Look at pfdel.pl, a mandatory tool to manage the queue. It takes a regexp and remove the mails waiting in queue corresponding to your domain.

Dom
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0

When you want to delete messages from or to e-mail addresses at a specific domain, this command works for me:

mailq | \
  tail -n +2 | \
  awk 'BEGIN { RS = "" } / @example\.com$/ { print $1 }' | \
  tr -d '*!' | \
  postsuper -d -

Also works for deleting e-mails from or to specific e-mail addresses by supplying for example mail@example\.com$/ instead of @example\.com$/.

Taken from a comment on howtoforge.com. See there for related solutions and the command in one line. (I used bash line continuation for readability).

A very similar command that allows to make deletion dependent on whether the address appears as sender, recipient etc. is found in man postsuper, where it says about -d:

For example, to delete all mail with exactly one recipient user@example.com:

mailq | \
  tail -n +2 | \
  grep -v '^ *(' | \
  awk 'BEGIN { RS = "" } { if ($8 == "user@example.com" && $9 == "") print $1 }' | \
  tr -d '*!' | \
  postsuper -d -

(The variables mean: $7=sender, $8=recipient1, $9=recipient2. I changed the quote to use tail -n +2, since their tail +2 does not work any more, at least on some modern systems.)

tanius
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  • The space before `@example\.com` seems wrong. – tripleee Oct 26 '18 at 10:04
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    The backslashes at the end of line are not actually necessary; the shell understands that the command continues on the next line if the last token is `|` (or `||` or `&&` or a bunch of others). – tripleee Oct 26 '18 at 10:10
-3

I've modified it little bit:

mailq | grep -B1 | grep -oE "^[A-Z0-9]{12}" | xargs -I% postsuper -d %

user465116
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    Then please explain why and what this is supposed to do. – Sven Apr 12 '18 at 15:40
  • Running hundreds of instances of `postsuper` is not an improvement at all. `xargs` is nice when you use it properly, but this is not one of those situations. – tripleee Oct 26 '18 at 10:11