On 2011-07-22 at 14:34 +0100, Oliver Howe wrote:
> 2011-07-22 09:55:11 Start queue run: pid=28711
> # date
> Fri Jul 22 14:17:58 BST 2011
> #
> # ps ax | grep 28711
> 28711 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/exim4 -q
> #
>
> does this mean I have a queue running since 09:55 (its now 14:17) and I can
> only have one queue running at a time?
No, it means that you have one recently started queue runner. It hasn't
done much, since it hasn't consumed much CPU time. Other flags to ps(1)
will tell you the time the process started.
The process you show is one runner. That runner was started by
something. There are three options for what that something was:
1: you (or other admin) at a command-line, starting one manually
2: cron, or other scheduler software, launching periodically
3: exim -q<time-spec>
The usual ways are 2 or 3. A time-spec might be "5m", for "every 5
minutes, start queue-runners". The command would thus be { exim -q5m }.
More often, this is combined with the command-line flag to start a
listening daemon, "-bd", to get: { exim -bd -q5m }.
There are a number of variations on this; -qq5m, etc etc. But that's
the basic idea. With no time-spec, you're looking at a runner.
-Phil
