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:
  5. 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

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