18.2 Why Qmail Is Delivering Mail Very Slowly

If qmail seems to wait about half a minute to do anything when you inject mail, the problem is almost certainly that the lock/trigger file used to communicate between qmail-queue and qmail-send is messed up. That file should be a named pipe:

# ls -l /var/qmail/queue/lock/trigger prw--w--w-  1 qmails  qmail  0 Nov  7 03:02 /var/qmail/queue/lock/trigger

If it's a regular file or anything other than a pipe, you have a problem. Fortunately, it's a problem that's easy to fix:

# svc -td /service/qmail-send   # shut qmail down for a minute # tail -f /service/qmail-send/log/main/current # # wait until the log says that it's exited # rm /var/qmail/queue/lock/trigger  # remove bogus trigger # cd wherever you built qmail from source # make setup check   # recreates all the crucial files including trigger # svc -u /service/qmail-send    # restart qmail

This is the second most frequently asked question on the qmail mailing list, and tends to get aggrieved responses pointing out that the answer is in the archives about a hundred times. So don't ask it, because now you know the answer.