Hmm, so seems like there's no interest in this bug report?
On Sat, Dec 14, 2019 at 05:11:32PM +0000, Russell King via Exim-users wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It seems that exim doesn't properly clean up after a failure to write
> to its message queue, but ends up leaving what it has written in the
> spool and other directories.
>
> The sending server (exim) reported:
>
> 2019-12-14 12:53:58 1ig6vR-0003NP-2l <= rmk@??? U=rmk P=local S=14483755 id=<elided>@gmail.com
> 2019-12-14 12:54:28 1ig6vR-0003NP-2l H=mail.armlinux.org.uk [x:x:x:x:5054:ff:fe00:189]: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: 451 Temporary local problem - please try later
>
> after it tried to deliver a message, because mail.armlinux.org.uk ran
> out of space (oops.) A 14MB email tends to be the exception here.
>
> On mail.armlinux.org.uk (debian buster, 4.92-8+deb10u3):
>
> 2019-12-14 12:54:23 1ig6vq-00073k-Ez H=flint.armlinux.org.uk [x:x:x:x:201:2ff:fe14:8fad] Warning: ACL "warn" statement skipped: condition test deferred
> ... repeated several times ...
> 2019-12-14 12:54:28 1ig6vq-00073k-Ez malware acl condition: clamd /run/clamav/clamd.ctl : ClamAV returned: /var/spool/exim4/scan/1ig6vq-00073k-Ez/1ig6vq-00073k-Ez.eml: Can't create temporary directory ERROR
>
> It looks like this occasion was properly cleaned up. Then the sending
> server had another couple of goes using some of the other addresses for
> the server (different IPv6 prefixes):
>
> 2019-12-14 12:54:43 1ig6vR-0003NP-2l H=mail.armlinux.org.uk [x:x:x:x:5054:ff:fe00:189]: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: 421 Unexpected failure, please try later
> 2019-12-14 12:54:44 1ig6vR-0003NP-2l H=mail.armlinux.org.uk [x:x:x:x:5054:ff:fe00:189]: SMTP error from remote mail server after pipelined MAIL FROM:<rmk@???> SIZE=14672979: 421 Unexpected failure, please try later
>
> For the second attempt, mail.armlinux.org.uk logged:
>
> 2019-12-14 12:54:43 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu H=flint.armlinux.org.uk [x:x:x:x:201:2ff:fe14:8fad] Warning: ACL "warn" statement skipped: condition test deferred
> ... repeated several times ...
> 2019-12-14 12:54:43 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu H=flint.armlinux.org.uk [x:x2019-12-14 13:02:56 Start queue run: pid=27196 -qfl
>
> Note the last log line was corrupted, which suggests exim couldn't write
> to the log file (space was available but only as reserved for root.)
> However, note the spool ID.
>
> At this point, mail.armlinux.org.uk stopped receiving anything else:
>
> 2019-12-14 13:04:26 spool directory space check failed: space=0 inodes=353381
>
> as the space that that previous attempt left a bunch of files behind:
>
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 14479989 Dec 14 12:54 /var/spool/exim4/input/1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-D
>
> without a -H file, so exim is never going to process that. Also:
>
> # ls -al /var/spool/exim4/scan/1ig6wH-00073p-Mu/
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 14479970 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00000
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 3 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00001
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 1867851 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00002
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 5 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00003
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 819200 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00004
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 0 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00005
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 0 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00006
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 0 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00007
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 0 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00008
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 0 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu-00009
> -rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim Debian-exim 14484031 Dec 14 12:54 1ig6wH-00073p-Mu.eml
>
> were all left behind from that attempt.
>
> I'm going to provision a separate filesystem for exim's spool for the
> future, but the obvious question is - shouldn't exim have cleaned up
> after itself, rather than leaving large stale files behind?
>
> I guess the plus point of leaving the files behind is it creates a
> hard failure that gets noticed!
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Russell King
>
> --
> ## List details at https://lists.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users
> ## Exim details at http://www.exim.org/
> ## Please use the Wiki with this list - http://wiki.exim.org/
>
--
Russell King
