NAME¶
cancelmsg - Cancel an E-mail message
SYNOPSIS¶
cancelmsg
{ msgid} ["reason"]
DESCRIPTION¶
cancelmsg removes a message from the mail queue. There will be no more
attempts to deliver this message, and a standard delivery failure notice is
sent to the return address listed on the message. You can only cancel your own
messages. The superuser can cancel any message. An attempt to cancel a message
will fail if the message has already been sent (of course), or if a delivery
attempt is currently in progress. Because a delivery attempt is usually
started as soon as an E-mail message is added to the mail queue, a
cancellation attempt is only effective if the message cannot be immediately
delivered for some reason, or if the system is very busy and is working on a
mail backlog.
cancelmsg works by marking all pending recipients as
undeliverable. A non-delivery report is then generated and sent in the normal
fashion.
msgid is the message queue id that can be obtained from the
mailq(1)[1], command. A
reason is optional. The message
does not disappear into a black void. The message will be returned as
undeliverable, citing
reason. A generic error message will be used if
reason is not specified.
BUGS¶
A non-delivery report may not be sent immediately, but delayed until the
message's turn comes up in the scheduling queue.
There is no immediate indication if the message cancellation worked. A
subsequent non-delivery report is the only indication of a successful cancel.
If it doesn't come, it means the message wasn't cancelled in time.
A non-delivery report will not be sent for recipients whose delivery status
notification does not include the FAIL notice.
SEE ALSO¶
mailq(1)[1],
courier(8)[2].
AUTHOR¶
Sam Varshavchik
Author
NOTES¶
- 1.
-
mailq(1)
[set
$man.base.url.for.relative.links]/mailq.html
- 2.
-
courier(8)
[set
$man.base.url.for.relative.links]/courier.html