[Dovecot] 9GB of messages in /tmp

[Daniel L. Miller]

Charles Marcus wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Well, I have a brain-dead user (using Thunderbird 2.0.0.14) who just 
> won't listen when I tell them not to try to move 5000+ messages at one 
> time (or if deleting, bypass the Trash), and they managed to royally 
> screw up their maildirs...
It's never bothered me - though I'm typically on a local IMAP 
connection.  Is yours different?
>
> I have two problems...
>
> 1. The /tmp directory has 9+GB in it... can I just rm tmp/* on that 
> directory without making this problem worse?
That'll make 'em go away...shouldn't compromise anything, unless they 
moved good stuff they wanted to keep....
>
> and
>
> 2. One of the directories they were moving now has 5 copies of a whole 
> bunch of messages...
>
> I'm very dangerous when it comes to command-line work beyond really 
> basic stuff, and my scripting skills are less than inspiring...
>
> Is there a relatively safe command-line way of finding all messages 
> that have more than one instance, and deleting all but the last instance?
The only way to determine if the messages are the same would be to do a 
full-text comparison, per message.  Not fun.  Tell the user they get to 
enjoy processing their mail by hand - an object lesson in why they 
should listen to their sysadmin.

-- 
Daniel