Answer: Exim is a mail transfer agent (MTA) used on Unix-like operating systems. It aims to be a general and flexible mailer with extensive facilities for checking incoming e-mail.
To print a list of the messages in the queue, enter:
# exim -bpTo remove a message from the queue, enter:
# exim -Mrm {message-id}To remove all messages from the queue, enter:
# exim -bp | awk '/^ *[0-9]+[mhd]/{print "exim -Mrm " $3}' | bash
Dallas Marlow, suggested following clean command:
# exim -bp | exiqgrep -i | xargs exim -Mrm
Here are some useful things to know for managing an Exim 4 server. This
assumes a prior working knowledge of SMTP, MTAs, and a UNIX shell prompt.
Message-IDs and spool files
The message-IDs that Exim uses to refer to messages in its queue are
mixed-case alpha-numeric, and take the form of: XXXXXX-YYYYYY-ZZ. Most
commands related to managing the queue and logging use these
message-ids.
There are three -- count 'em, THREE -- files for each message in the
spool directory. If you're dealing with these files by hand, instead of
using the appropriate exim commands as detailed below, make sure you get
them all, and don't leave Exim with remnants of messages in the queue. I
used to mess directly with these files when I first started running Exim
machines, but thanks to the utilities described below, I haven't needed to
do that in many months.
Files in /var/spool/exim/msglog contain logging information for each message
and are named the same as the message-id.
Files in /var/spool/exim/input are named after the message-id, plus a suffix
denoting whether it is the envelope header (-H) or message data (-D).
These directories may contain further hashed subdirectories to deal with
larger mail queues, so don't expect everything to always appear directly in the
top /var/spool/exim/input or /var/spool/exim/msglog directories; any searches
or greps will need to be recursive. See if there is a proper way to do what
you're doing before working directly on the spool files.
Basic information
Print a count of the messages in the queue:
root@localhost# exim -bpc
Print a listing of the messages in the queue (time queued, size, message-id,
sender, recipient):
root@localhost# exim -bp
Print a summary of messages in the queue (count, volume, oldest, newest,
domain, and totals):
root@localhost# exim -bp | exiqsumm
Print what Exim is doing right now:
root@localhost# exiwhat
Test how exim will route a given address:
root@localhost# exim -bt alias@localdomain.com
user@thishost.com
<-- alias@localdomain.com
router = localuser, transport = local_delivery
root@localhost# exim -bt user@thishost.com
user@thishost.com
router = localuser, transport = local_delivery
root@localhost# exim -bt user@remotehost.com
router = lookuphost, transport = remote_smtp
host mail.remotehost.com [1.2.3.4] MX=0
Run a pretend SMTP transaction from the command line, as if it were
coming from the given IP address. This will display Exim's checks, ACLs,
and filters as they are applied. The message will NOT actually be
delivered.
root@localhost# exim -bh 192.168.11.22
Display all of Exim's configuration settings:
root@localhost# exim -bP
Searching the queue with exiqgrep
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>
Access control
Exim allows you to apply
access
control lists
at various points of the SMTP transaction by specifying an ACL to use and
defining its conditions in exim.conf. You could start with the HELO
string.
# Specify the ACL to use after HELO
acl_smtp_helo = check_helo
# Conditions for the check_helo ACL:
check_helo:
deny message = Gave HELO/EHLO as "friend"
log_message = HELO/EHLO friend
condition = ${if eq {$sender_helo_name}{friend} {yes}{no}}
deny message = Gave HELO/EHLO as our IP address
log_message = HELO/EHLO our IP address
condition = ${if eq {$sender_helo_name}{$interface_address} {yes}{no}}
accept
NOTE: Pursue HELO checking at your own peril. The HELO is fairly
unimportant in the grand scheme of SMTP these days, so don't put too much
faith in whatever it contains. Some spam might seem to use a telltale HELO
string, but you might be surprised at how many legitimate messages start
off with a questionable HELO as well. Anyway, it's just as easy for a
spammer to send a proper HELO than it is to send HELO im.a.spammer, so
consider yourself lucky if you're able to stop much spam this way.
Next, you can perform a check on the sender address or remote host.
This shows how to do that after the RCPT TO command; if you reject here, as
opposed to rejecting after the MAIL FROM, you'll have better data to
log, such as who the message was intended for.
# Specify the ACL to use after RCPT TO
acl_smtp_rcpt = check_recipient
# Conditions for the check_recipient ACL
check_recipient:
# [...]
drop hosts = /etc/exim_reject_hosts
drop senders = /etc/exim_reject_senders
# [ Probably a whole lot more... ]
This example uses two plain text files as blacklists. Add appropriate
entries to these files - hostnames/IP addresses to /etc/exim_reject_hosts,
addresses to /etc/exim_reject_senders, one entry per line.
It is also possible to perform
content
scanning using a regex against the body of a message, though obviously
this can cause Exim to use more CPU than it otherwise would need to,
especially on large messages.
# Specify the ACL to use after DATA
acl_smtp_data = check_message
# Conditions for the check_messages ACL
check_message:
deny message = "Sorry, Charlie: $regex_match_string"
regex = ^Subject:: .*Lower your self-esteem by becoming a sysadmin
accept
Fix SMTP-Auth for Pine
If pine can't use SMTP authentication on an Exim host and just returns
an "unable to authenticate" message without even asking for a password, add
the following line to exim.conf:
begin authenticators
fixed_plain:
driver = plaintext
public_name = PLAIN
server_condition = "${perl{checkuserpass}{$1}{$2}{$3}}"
server_set_id = $2
> server_prompts = :
This was a problem on CPanel Exim builds awhile ago, but they seem to
have added this line to their current stock configuration.
Log the subject line
This is one of the most useful configuration tweaks I've ever found for
Exim. Add this to exim.conf, and you can log the subject lines of messages
that pass through your server. This is great for troubleshooting, and for
getting a very rough idea of what messages may be spam.
log_selector = +subject
Disable identd lookups
Frankly, I don't think identd has been useful for a
long time, if ever. Identd relies on the connecting host to confirm the
identity (system UID) of the remote user who owns the process that is
making the network connection. This may be of some use in the world of
shell accounts and IRC users, but it really has no place on a high-volume
SMTP server, where the UID is often simply "mail" or whatever the remote
MTA runs as, which is useless to know. It's overhead, and results in
nothing but delays while the identd query is refused or times out. You
can stop your Exim server from making these queries by setting the timeout
to zero seconds in exim.conf:
rfc1413_query_timeout = 0s
Disable Attachment Blocking
To disable the executable-attachment blocking that many Cpanel servers
do by default but don't provide any controls for on a per-domain basis, add
the following block to the beginning of the /etc/antivirus.exim file:
if $header_to: matches "example\.com|example2\.com" then finish endif
It is probably possible to use a separate file to list these domains,
but I haven't had to do this enough times to warrant setting such a thing
up.
Searching the logs with exigrep
The exigrep
utility (not to be confused with exiqgrep) is used to search an exim log
for a string or pattern. It will print all log entries with the same
internal message-id as those that matched the pattern, which is very handy
since any message will take up at least three lines in the log. exigrep
will search the entire content of a log entry, not just particular
fields.
One can search for messages sent from a particular IP address:
root@localhost# exigrep '<= .* \[12.34.56.78\] ' /path/to/exim_log
Search for messages sent to a particular IP address:
root@localhost# exigrep '=> .* \[12.34.56.78\]' /path/to/exim_log
This example searches for outgoing messages, which have the "=>"
symbol, sent to "user@domain.tld". The pipe to grep for the "<=" symbol
will match only the lines with information on the sender - the From
address, the sender's IP address, the message size, the message ID, and the
subject line if you have enabled logging the subject. The purpose of doing
such a search is that the desired information is not on the same log line
as the string being searched for.
root@localhost# exigrep '=> .*user@domain.tld' /path/to/exim_log | fgrep '<='
Generate and display Exim stats from a logfile:
root@localhost# eximstats /path/to/exim_mainlog
Same as above, with less verbose output:
root@localhost# eximstats -ne -nr -nt /path/to/exim_mainlog
Same as above, for one particular day:
root@localhost# fgrep YYYY-MM-DD /path/to/exim_mainlog | eximstats
Bonus!
To delete all queued messages containing a certain string in the
body:
root@localhost# grep -lr 'a certain string' /var/spool/exim/input/ | \
sed -e 's/^.*\/\([a-zA-Z0-9-]*\)-[DH]$/\1/g' | xargs exim -Mrm
Note that the above only delves into /var/spool/exim in order to grep
for queue files with the given string, and that's just because exiqgrep
doesn't have a feature to grep the actual bodies of messages. If you are
deleting these files directly, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG! Use the appropriate
exim command to properly deal with the queue.
If you have to feed many, many message-ids (such as the output of an
`exiqgrep -i` command that returns a lot of matches) to an exim command,
you may exhaust the limit of your shell's command line arguments. In that
case, pipe the listing of message-ids into xargs to run only a limited
number of them at once. For example, to remove thousands of messages sent
from joe@example.com:
root@localhost# exiqgrep -i -f '<joe@example.com>' | xargs exim -Mrm
Both logs [incoming and outgoing mails] can be checked with same files as mentioned above by arunsv84.You can differentiate these logs through sign "less then equal to or grater then equal to " [ <= or => ] i.e For Incomming: root@server: grep email@domain.com /var/log/exim_mainlog 2009-02-19 09:07:51 1La9Z6-0001Eg-IT <= email@domain.com H=cluster.server.com [x.x.x.x] P=esmtps X=TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256 S=926 id=499D67A2.5030502@domain.com T="Test - Incoming Mail" For Outgoing: 2009-02-19 09:07:51 1La9Z6-0001Eg-IT => email@domain.com H=cluster.server.com [x.x.x.x] P=esmtps X=TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256 S=926 id=499D67A2.5030502@domain.com T="Test - Outgoing Mail"
----------------------To display information such as build and version number.# exim -bV----------------------Force delivery of one message exim -M email-id----------------------Force another queue run exim -qf----------------------View the log for the message exim -Mvl msgid----------------------View the body of the message exim -Mvb msgid----------------------View the header of the message exim -Mvh msgid----------------------Remove message without sending any error message exim -Mrm msgid----------------------Giveup and fail message to bounce the message to the Sender exim -Mg msgid----------------------To force exim update: /scripts/eximup --force------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- to search mail from perticuler mail id in mail queue/usr/sbin/exiqgrep -i -f webmaster@www.domain.com------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- to count number of mail for perticular domain & with msg ids /usr/sbin/exiqgrep -i -f @domain.com
; /usr/sbin/exiqgrep -i -f @domain.com
|wc -l------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- ==== REMOVE MAILS FROM SENDER ====/usr/sbin/exiqgrep -i -f webmaster@www.domain.com | xargs exim -Mrm==== DELIVER FORCEFULLY EMAILS ====/usr/sbin/exim -qff -v -C /etc/exim.conf &==== REMOVE MAILS BY ID ====/usr/sbin/exim -v -Mrm domain@domain.com==== DELIVER FORCEFULLY EMAILS ====/usr/sbin/exim -qff -v -C /etc/exim.conf &------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- Below command will show you time , msg id & user id------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- Test how exim will route a given address: root@localhost# exim -bt alias@localdomain.com user@thishost.com <-- alias@localdomain.com router = localuser, transport = local_delivery root@localhost# exim -bt user@thishost.com user@thishost.com router = localuser, transport = local_delivery root@localhost# exim -bt user@remotehost.com router = lookuphost, transport = remote_smtp host mail.remotehost.com
[1.2.3.4] MX=0
Flush exim from SSH # exiqgrep -i | xargs /usr/sbin/exim -Mrm-----------------------------how many emails are there in email queue ?#exim -bpc OR#exim -bpr | grep "<" | wc -ldelete emails older than 5 days in the queue # /usr/sbin/exiqgrep -i -o XXXXXX | xargs /usr/sbin/exim -Mrmwhere XXXXXX is seconds old (for example delete emails older than 5 days in the queue)Print a summary of messages in the queue (count, volume, oldest, newest, domain, and totals): # exim -bp | exiqsummDisplay all of Exim's configuration settings: # exim -bPPrint a listing of the messages in the queue (time queued, size, message-id, sender, recipient): # exim -bpPrint what Exim is doing right now: # exiwhatUse -f to search the queue for messages from a specific sender: # exiqgrep -f domain@domain.comUse -r to search the queue for messages for a specific recipient/domain: # exiqgrep -r domain@domain.comUse -o to print messages older than the specified number of seconds. For example, messages older than 1 day: # exiqgrep -o 86400 [60*60*24=86400] 24 hoursUse -y to print messages that are younger than the specified number of seconds. For example, messages less than an hour old # exiqgrep -y 3600 [...]Use -s to match the size of a message with a regex. For example, 700-799 bytes: # exiqgrep -s '^7..$' [...]Use -z to match only frozen messages, or -x to match only unfrozen messages. # exiagrep -z (match only frozen messages) or -x (to match only unfrozen messages)------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- Start a queue run:# exim -q -vStart a queue run for just local deliveries:# exim -ql -vForce another queue run and attempt to flush the frozen message # exim -qff-----------------------------Remove a message from the queue:# exim -Mrm msgid-----------------------------Freeze : UndeliverableCount How many Frozen mails in the queue # exim -bpr | grep frozen | wc -lFreeze a message:# exim -Mf msgidFreeze all queued mail from a given sender:# exiqgrep -i -f domain@domain.com | xargs exim -MfRemove Frozen (undeliverable) mails from the queue# exim -bp | awk '$6~"frozen" { print $3 }' | xargs exim -Mrm # exim -bp | grep frozen | awk '{print $3}' | xargs exim -Mrm # exim -bpr | grep frozen | awk {'print $3'} | xargs exim -Mrm# exiqgrep -zi | xargs exim -Mrm# exiqgrep -z -i | xargs exim -Mrm http://docs.cs.up.ac.za/techteam/exim_cheatsheet.php.html--------------------------------------------------------
Commands in A