How do I rebuild qmail's queue if it is damaged or consists of a lot of spam messages?

Some of the information in this article is advanced material we make available as a courtesy. Please be advised that you are responsible for properly following the procedures below. Customer Support cannot assist with these topics.

You can recreate qmail's queue, but all current messages will be removed from the queue and cannot be restored.

To Recreate Qmail's Queue

1. Connect to your server via SSH (more info).
2. Switch to the root user (more info).
3. At the command prompt, stop Qmail by typing /etc/init.d/qmail stop.
4. Then, type the following:
cd /var/qmail/queue
rm -rf info intd local mess remote todo

mkdir mess

for i in `seq 0 22`; do
mkdir -p mess/$i
done

cp -r mess info
cp -r mess intd
cp -r mess local
cp -r mess remote
cp -r mess todo

chmod -R 750 mess todo
chown -R qmailq:qmail mess todo

chmod -R 700 info intd local remote
chown -R qmailq:qmail intd
chown -R qmails:qmail info local remote


5. Start Qmail by typing /etc/init.d/qmail start.