Safe to delete mail file?

svenger · 12-31-2006, 10:35 AM

Hi,

I do have some pretty huge mail files in the folders from my domains:
/home/virtual/domain1.com/var/spool/mail/username
/home/virtual/domain2.com/var/spool/mail/otherusername
...

The username files are up to 2gb. As I don't want to download 1000's of spam mails, I'd like to know if I can simply delete these files - or would it be possible that deleting them can cause some errors?
Any other solutions are welcome

I do use Ensim Pro 4.1.x on RH Enterprise 3ES.

Thanks,
Sven

namit · 12-31-2006, 10:58 AM

you could view them in mutt or mail

just do this

mutt -f /fileyourtryingtoread

this will read the emails in the mail file and allow you to delete the ones you want, have you not got a webmail setup you could loginto and view the emails?

svenger · 12-31-2006, 11:22 AM

Hi,

I do want to delete all of them. I can setup webmail, but disabled it. (As well as I disabled smtp and pop, too as no email for this domain is nessecary anymore)

odd2k · 12-31-2006, 11:28 AM

If you don't want the accounts to get email, that's something you need to setup in your mail client.

If you want to empty the mailboxes, just do something like this:

Code:

> /home/virtual/domain1.com/var/spool/mail/username
> /home/virtual/domain2.com/var/spool/mail/otherusername

namit · 12-31-2006, 11:32 AM

no mutt will just will allow you to read everything and you can just press D to delete selected emails or do what odd2k did

svenger · 12-31-2006, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by odd2k

If you don't want the accounts to get email, that's something you need to setup in your mail client.

If you want to empty the mailboxes, just do something like this:

Code:

> /home/virtual/domain1.com/var/spool/mail/username
> /home/virtual/domain2.com/var/spool/mail/otherusername

Is there some command missing, I've to type to empty them?

I do get
[root@server mail]# /home/virtual/domain1.com/var/spool/mail/username
-bash: /home/virtual/domain1.com/var/spool/mail/username: Permission denied

odd2k · 12-31-2006, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by svenger

Is there some command missing, I've to type to empty them?

I do get
[root@server mail]# /home/virtual/domain1.com/var/spool/mail/username
-bash: /home/virtual/domain1.com/var/spool/mail/username: Permission denied

Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot the fact that the mailboxes are on a remote host. You need root access on said host, or you could try to delete them through a mail client, I suppose.