Exim is the widely used open source mail transfer agent. It is responsible for routing, delivering, and receiving email messages. Here are some of my favorite, useful exim commands via shell.
This command will show exim processes including the path to the script being utilized to send mail. Very useful in locating a spamming script:
ps -C exim -fH eww
This will show the route of the email address. It is useful when you try to diagnose email delivery problems:
exim -bt user@domain.com
To perform a SMTP testing session as if the mail comes from a particular host for testing filtering rules inside your server:
exim -bh ipaddresshere
This will show what exim is currently doing:
exiwhat
Mail server queue:
exim -bpc // print the total number of emails currently in server queue. exim -bp // print mails in queue sorting by time, size,... exim -bp | exiqsumm // count, volume, oldest, newest, domain, and totals
To list exim’s configuration setting:
exim -bP
To start a queue run:
exim -q -v
To start a queue run for just local deliveries:
exim -ql -v
To remove a message from the queue:
exim -Mrm <message-id>
To freeze a message:
exim -Mf <message-id>
To force delivery of a message:
exim -M <message-id>
To remove all frozen messages:
exiqgrep -z -i | xargs exim -Mrm
To remove all messages older than 1 day (the number is in seconds):
exiqgrep -o 86400 -i | xargs exim -Mrm
To freeze all queued mail from a given sender:
exiqgrep -i -f user@domain.com | xargs exim -Mf
Message viewing:
exim -Mvh <message-id> // view message's headers exim -Mvb <message-id> // view message's body exim -Mvl <message-id> // view message's logs
Exiqgrep
At times, we will be required to search the mail queue for a particular message to help troubleshooting mail problems for our users. Here are some useful exiqgrep commands.
This will search the queue for messages coming from a specific sender:
exiqgrep -f user@domain.com
This will search the queue for messages from a specific recipient:
exiqgrep -r user@domain.com
This will display messages older than the specified number of seconds.
exiqgrep -o 86400 // more than a day old
This will display messages newer than the specified number of seconds.
exiqgrep -y 3600 // less than an hour old