Mailbox lock not getting removed

Hi,

I am using postfix 2.5.1 on fc8.

Everything was working fine till now. One fine morning, i saw repeated mails in my inbox. Had a look into the server and found that the problem is due to another user's mailbox and the mails are getting repeated due to locking problem. Mails got repeated to all users who had been included in the alias of this user.

In the mailq, I could see a long list of mails waiting to be sent to this user with a message
"cannot access mailbox /var/mail/XXXX for user XXXX. unable to create lock file /var/mail/XXXX.lock: File exists"

I googled and found in some forums that the problem will get rectified once the lock file gets removed. So I tried removing the lock file and flushing the queue. Still no luck . . . . .

Can anyone help me postmortem this and rectify the problem ?

The output of lsof | grep XXXX , when the lock is valid is :

[root@MYHOST~]# lsof | grep XXXX local 27104 XXXX cwd DIR 253,0 4096 33292703 /var/spool/postfix local 27104 XXXX rtd DIR 253,0 4096 2 / local 27104 XXXX txt REG 253,0 827552 1771313 /usr/libexec/postfix/local local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 50768 19267692 /lib/libnss_files-2.7.so local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 109580 19269120 /lib/libnsl-2.7.so local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 84772 19269122 /lib/libresolv-2.7.so local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 128952 19269106 /lib/ld-2.7.so local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 1692524 19269107 /lib/libc-2.7.so local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 20564 19269108 /lib/libdl-2.7.so local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 131528 19269109 /lib/libpthread-2.7.so local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 45316 19269131 /lib/libcrypt-2.7.so local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 99092 1043829 /usr/lib/libsasl2.so.2.0.22 local 27104 XXXX mem REG 253,0 1319560 19269130 /lib/libdb-4.6.so local 27104 XXXX 0u CHR 1,3 207 /dev/null local 27104 XXXX 1u CHR 1,3 207 /dev/null local 27104 XXXX 2u CHR 1,3 207 /dev/null local 27104 XXXX 3r FIFO 0,6 107268248 pipe local 27104 XXXX 4w FIFO 0,6 107268248 pipe local 27104 XXXX 5u unix 0xf721f000 107268174 socket local 27104 XXXX 6u unix 0xf721fc00 107268171 private/local local 27104 XXXX 7u unix 0xf5ee8c00 107268271 socket local 27104 XXXX 8u REG 253,0 0 33295053 /var/spool/postfix/pid/unix.local local 27104 XXXX 9u 0000 0,7 0 22 anon_inode local 27104 XXXX 10r REG 253,0 12288 32670001 /etc/postfix/aliases.db local 27104 XXXX 11r REG 253,0 12288 32670001 /etc/postfix/aliases.db local 27104 XXXX 12u 0000 0,7 0 22 anon_inode local 27104 XXXX 13u unix 0xf5ee8e00 107268277 private/local local 27104 XXXX 14uR REG 253,0 4284 16220161 /var/spool/postfix/active/296F3F78001 local 27104 XXXX 15u unix 0xd9710e00 107268278 socket local 27104 XXXX 16u IPv4 107268311 UDP *:43882 local 27105 XXXX cwd DIR 253,0 4096 33292703 /var/spool/postfix local 27105 XXXX rtd DIR 253,0 4096 2 / local 27105 XXXX txt REG 253,0 827552 1771313 /usr/libexec/postfix/local local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 50768 19267692 /lib/libnss_files-2.7.so local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 109580 19269120 /lib/libnsl-2.7.so local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 84772 19269122 /lib/libresolv-2.7.so local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 128952 19269106 /lib/ld-2.7.so local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 1692524 19269107 /lib/libc-2.7.so local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 20564 19269108 /lib/libdl-2.7.so local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 131528 19269109 /lib/libpthread-2.7.so local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 45316 19269131 /lib/libcrypt-2.7.so local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 99092 1043829 /usr/lib/libsasl2.so.2.0.22 local 27105 XXXX mem REG 253,0 1319560 19269130 /lib/libdb-4.6.so local 27105 XXXX 0u CHR 1,3 207 /dev/null local 27105 XXXX 1u CHR 1,3 207 /dev/null local 27105 XXXX 2u CHR 1,3 207 /dev/null local 27105 XXXX 3r FIFO 0,6 107268248 pipe local 27105 XXXX 4w FIFO 0,6 107268248 pipe local 27105 XXXX 5u unix 0xf721f000 107268174 socket local 27105 XXXX 6u unix 0xf721fc00 107268171 private/local local 27105 XXXX 7u unix 0xed0dc400 107268280 socket local 27105 XXXX 8u REG 253,0 0 33295053 /var/spool/postfix/pid/unix.local local 27105 XXXX 9u 0000 0,7 0 22 anon_inode local 27105 XXXX 10r REG 253,0 12288 32670001 /etc/postfix/aliases.db local 27105 XXXX 11r REG 253,0 12288 32670001 /etc/postfix/aliases.db local 27105 XXXX 12u 0000 0,7 0 22 anon_inode local 27105 XXXX 13u unix 0xed0dc200 107268286 private/local local 27105 XXXX 14uR REG 253,0 4270 16220165 /var/spool/postfix/active/E89D8F78005 local 27105 XXXX 15u unix 0xf5ee8200 107268287 socket local 27105 XXXX 16u IPv4 107268306 UDP *:43880 [root@MYHOST ~]#

Some mails in the queue bear a different message :

(cannot access mailbox /var/mail/XXXX for user XXXX. unable to lock for exclusive access: Resource temporarily unavailable)

fuser -k mailbox

for example

fuser -k /var/spool/mail/john

Originally Posted by osamaensyviswinkel fuser -k mailbox for example fuser -k /var/spool/mail/john

Thanks a lot buddy for the information.

will check this next time i need

my pleasure!