Ismail Al-Sulby said in a message to All:

 IA> Hello All,
 IA> We have a Unix Server that Run more than one application. One of
 IA> those applications is the E-Mail Service. As I know that, each
 IA> mailbox in the Unix system has it's own file name.
 IA> what I want to know is the following:

 IA>         - How to keep a limit for this mailbox in terms of Size,
 IA> and the Date of messages. which comes first.

Ahh.. the age old question of Unix Mail Administrators around the world.

Sadly, there isn't any inherent system in Unix to manage quotas on file
space utilization; however, there are some scripting solutions that can be
implemented.

One method that's used is to scan the mail directory on a regular basis for
files greater than X and send an email message to the mail administrator
with a list of those files.

A simpler method that can be done on demand is to simply log on and do a
listing of the mail directory by size from largest to smallest.

That could be automated to send you the top 10 or 20 mailboxes on a regular basis.

However, even this may not be entirely accurate for what one might really
desire to accomplish.

Yet another option is to list the files by 'oldest accessed' file --
because really what you want to know is who has the largest mailbox who
isn't reading their mail.

I doubt you'd want to mess with the mailbox of an active user; though,
there might be times when managing the size of the "inbox" file
would be useful.

Just some ideas...


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