How to tell exim to discard undelivered after 5 days / 5d?

[spaceman]

Hi All,

An older server of mine used to discard undelivered mail after 5 days (5d) on the queue. I've recently got a new server, and it appears to keep mail for 7 days before discarding. I reckon 5 days is ample - how/where do I set it back to 5 days?

Thx.

 

[kernow]

WHM>>>>>>Service Configuration>>>>>>>>>>Exim Configuration Editor>>>>>>>>>>>>>Advanced mode.
In the first box white put this lines:

auto_thaw = 5d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 5d

 

[chirpy]

You can also use:

timeout_frozen_after = 5d

That way any undeliverable email will also be dropped after 5 days and avoids the auto_thaw.

 

[mambovince]

You can also use:
timeout_frozen_after = 5d
That way any undeliverable email will also be dropped after 5 days and avoids the auto_thaw.

I get loads (100's) of frozen emails in the queue every 2/3 days and usually get rid of them via SSH using:

exim -bpru|grep frozen|awk {'print $3'}|xargs exim -Mrm

Chirpy, are you suggesting to just replace the 1st line?

timeout_frozen_after = 5d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 5d

Many thanks,

- Vince

 

[chirpy]

Yes. That's all you should need from the description of the functions in the exim docs. Setting them lower might be more sensible:

timeout_frozen_after = 4d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 1d

 

[spaceman]

Yes. That's all you should need from the description of the functions in the exim docs. Setting them lower might be more sensible:

timeout_frozen_after = 4d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 1d

Hi,

The above setting is exactly what I have in the first available text area in the advanced exim editor in WHM, and yet still I have mail in my queue that is 7 days old.

Searching down the exim settings that I can't change, I can see in the MAIN CONFIGURATION SETTINGS section is this:

ignore_bounce_errors_after = 7d
timeout_frozen_after = 8d

So it seems to me like my settings are not overriding these settings?

 

[[email protected]]

Hi,

The above setting is exactly what I have in the first available text area in the advanced exim editor in WHM, and yet still I have mail in my queue that is 7 days old.

Searching down the exim settings that I can't change, I can see in the MAIN CONFIGURATION SETTINGS section is this:

ignore_bounce_errors_after = 7d
timeout_frozen_after = 8d

So it seems to me like my settings are not overriding these settings?

Yep. Same here. The overrides aren't working.

Did I miss some other comment concering this that interacts with these commands in order to make them effective?

 

[MMarko]

It works. Just manually check /etc/exim.conf and you'll see that new setting have been applied.

 

[spaceman]

I just checked /etc/exim.conf and I can confirm that the changed I put in WHM > Exim Configuration Editor are *not* being applied to exim.conf. Here's an excerpt from my exim.conf, note where it says "[ This is the only occurrence ]" in relation to a search for 'ignore_bounce", i.e. cjust to check it wasn't being set elsewhere in the the file:

-----------------------------------------------
# primary_hostname =
deliver_queue_load_max = 3
auto_thaw = 6d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 7d
timeout_frozen_after = 8d

# Specify the domain you want to be added to all unqualified addresses
# here. An unqualified address is one that does not contain an "@" character
# followed by a domain. For example, "[email protected]" is a fully qualified
# address, but the string "caesar" (i.e. just a login name) is an unqualified
# email address. Unqualified addresses are accepted only from local callers by
# default. See the receiver_unqualified_{hosts,nets} options if you want
[ This is the only occurrence ]
-----------------------------------------------

Bottom line: changes I'm making in WHM > Exim Configuration Editor are not being written into exim.conf.

A permission problem on exim.conf perhaps?

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33142 Oct 11 10:11 exim.conf

 

[chirpy]

It works. Just manually check /etc/exim.conf and you'll see that new setting have been applied.

Yup, works fine for me too.

Bottom line: changes I'm making in WHM > Exim Configuration Editor are not being written into exim.conf

Make sure you haven't chattr'd any exim files:

lsattr /etc/exim*

 

[mgorovoy]

To thaw or not to thaw, that is the question...

If the following settings are present in the exim.conf file,

timeout_frozen_after = 4d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 1d

what would be the correct setting for the auto_thaw option? Is it supposed to be in between the above two values, or equal to timeout_frozen_after value?

 

[chirpy]

Placement is irrelevant within that textarea in the Exim Configuration Editor. Why do you want to auto_thaw queued email?

 

[abubin]

I have these values :

auto_thaw = 6d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 7d
timeout_frozen_after = 8d

It seems too high eventhough they are default values. I wanted to change them in WHM but they are in the unchangeable section.

If I change them in exim.conf through SSH, how do I sync the values back to WHM exim editor? I do not want to have 2 sections with different exim configuration.

 

[mgorovoy]

Placement is irrelevant within that textarea in the Exim Configuration Editor. Why do you want to auto_thaw queued email?

Perhaps I did not phrase my question correctly. I was not asking where it is supposed to be placed. What I meant is what value should be assigned to that setting? I know that by default auto_thaw is set to something like 6 days by cPanel. We would prefer to remove that option entirely. How would I do it via Advanced Configuration editor? Should we assign auto_thaw=0s or something to that effect?

 

[spaceman]

Make sure you haven't chattr'd any exim files:

lsattr /etc/exim*

That was it (for us). Thanks chirpy!

 

[chirpy]

I have these values :

auto_thaw = 6d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 7d
timeout_frozen_after = 8d

It seems too high eventhough they are default values. I wanted to change them in WHM but they are in the unchangeable section.

If I change them in exim.conf through SSH, how do I sync the values back to WHM exim editor? I do not want to have 2 sections with different exim configuration.

That's not how it works. You should never ever change exim.conf itself. Put them in using the exim configuration editor and they will be correctly written to the generated exim.conf

I know that by default auto_thaw is set to something like 6 days by cPanel. We would prefer to remove that option entirely.

There's no need to set it. If you have set:

timeout_frozen_after = 4d

then frozen emails will be dropped after 4 days anyway.

 

[abubin]

I have placed :

ignore_bounce_errors_after = 4d
timeout_frozen_after = 4d

In WHM exim editor but not sure if the value is reflected correctly cause I still see the default value by exim there and also my entries which I put in the top most box.

 

[spaceman]

Setting them lower might be more sensible:

timeout_frozen_after = 4d
ignore_bounce_errors_after = 1d

It may interest others to know that an unexpected but welcome side-effect of the above settings taking effect was that Munin graphs for memory usage on our server show a much less turbulent memory use environment - smoother memory use graphs, much less ragged. I spotted this effect by chance, and since we didn't do anything on the server around the time the memory usage graphs got smoother, I can only put it down to these settings. So the existence of many (1K+) frozen and bounced message on the exim mail queue was having an detrimental effect on the server overall.