Archive mail question. To use Logrotate or not

plisken · 07-12-2013, 05:59 AM

As per subject, I'm looking to archive/retain some users mail, as I currently do, albeit manually.

I was thinking of adding something like this to my logroate.conf file, is this the done thing or is there perhaps another way of doing it.

Code:

/var/spool/mail/user {
monthly
rotate 12
create
missingok
postrotate
/etc/rc.d/rc.sendmail restart
endscript
}

zhjim · 07-12-2013, 07:33 AM

Dunno if you actually have to restart sendmail after moving the file. Would need a test for this if sendmail opens the files when new mail get in or if it holds the file descriptor. I doubt that it holds the fd cause for a big system that would be a lot of handles.

I guess I would not use logrotate for this. Also something to evaluate. For sure use the olddir option for sendmail so the mails go into a special directory and are "out of the way".

plisken · 07-12-2013, 10:24 AM

Probably right about not needing to restart it after move as I don't after I manually rename and on first mail, it creates the new file.

logrotate was just the first thing that I thought off, wondering if there was a more common way in use.

TenTenths · 07-12-2013, 10:28 AM

You could look at dirvish, that way only the mails that "change" / "are new" are copied but it maintains symlinks so that each month would look and act like a "full" backup.