sendmail, 4th Edition

The Q Configuration Command

Queue groups are declared with the Q configuration command. That command can take a wide range of appearances, but in all guises it takes the name of the queue group and then a sequence of equates:

Qgroupname, equates

The name of the queue group (here groupname) must follow the Q with no intervening spaces. If spaces are present, an error such as the following is printed and logged, and that Q line is ignored:

file.cf: line line number: queue : `=' expected

The equates are optional, but if they are present they must follow the queue group’s name and a comma or whitespace, or both:

Qgroupname, equates

The equates are formed by selecting one of the keywords shown in the leftmost column of Table 11-2, and following it with an equals sign and the value you wish to assign to that key letter. Note that only the first letter is looked at by sendmail, so you can use the shorthand shown in parentheses if you wish. Also note that the first letter is case-sensitive—that is, R and r are different.

For example, both of the following declare a queue directory (the Path= and P=) and a queue-processing interval of 10 minutes (the Interval= and I=):

Qslowmail, Path=/disk1/mail/slowqueues, Interval=10m
Qslowmail, P=/disk1/mail/slowqueues, I=10m

A comma separates one equate from another. The comma can be optionally surrounded by whitespace characters (spaces and tabs). If the value following the comma is missing, an appropriate error will be printed and logged.

Table 11-2. Q configuration ...