Mail for root enabled - and filling up filesystem. How do I disable? RHEL

Hotchips · 12-09-2009, 08:39 PM

Hi peeps,

Running mutt, I accidentally created a mailbox for root....

/root/Mail does not exist. Create it? ([yes]/no):

I now have tons of mail going to root which I don't want or need. How do I simply reverse this trigger? That is, mail (mostly system messages like cron etc.) destined for root does not write and fill up my HDD.

Cheers,

RHEL 4.5 server.

Sendmail Version 8.13.8
mutt v1.4.2.2i (2006-07-14)

Hotchips · 12-09-2009, 09:49 PM

How is this done by redirecting root mail to /dev/null??? (if that is a possability?)

ramram29 · 12-09-2009, 11:24 PM

Edit your /etc/crontab and blank the MAIL= variable. Change it from MAIL=root to MAIL=

evo2 · 12-09-2009, 11:54 PM

I think it is best to forward mail sent to root to the account of the machines admin (presumably you).

Not sure about RHEL, but on many *nix systems this can be done by adding the following near the start of /etc/aliases

Code:

root: yourusername

After doing this you can read and delete this mail as you would any other.

Evo2.

Hotchips · 12-10-2009, 05:36 PM

Changed crontab and blanked mail=

I still get mail going to root.

I really want to get back to no mail actually getting written for root - how it was before I kicked root mail off with mutt.

For this particular box, I do not want/need root mail AT ALL. This may change, but I want do not have to worry about it for now.

When I opened mutt and it wrote all the cached emails to a newly created mailbox, obviously a setting or flag somewhere was activated/changed. I just want to change it back.

Ideally I want no root mail again until I again run mutt as root and again trigger a mailbox for root.

Cheers,