sendmail, 4th Edition

QueueSortOrder

How to presort the queue V8.7 and later

Prior to V8.7 sendmail, mail messages in the queue were sorted by priority when the queue was processed. Under V8.7, an enhanced sort can be implemented with the QueueSortOrder option, the forms of which are as follows:

O QueueSortOrder=how                  ← configuration file (V8.7 and later)
-OQueueSortOrder=how                  ← command line (V8.7 and later)
define(`confQUEUE_SORT_ORDER',how)    ← mc configuration (V8.7 and later)

The argument how is of type character.^[410] It can be P or p (for priority), which causes sendmail to emulate its old (sort by priority) behavior. It can be H or h (for host), which causes sendmail to perform an enhanced sort. Beginning with V8.8 sendmail, it can be T or t (for time), which sorts by submission time. Beginning with V8.10 sendmail, it can be F or f (for file), which sorts by filename. Beginning with V8.12 sendmail, it can be R or r (for random), which randomizes the list of hosts, or M or m, which sorts based on file modification time. Beginning with V8.13 sendmail, it can be N or n (for none), to not sort at all. If any other character is specified or if how is omitted, the following message is printed and the option is skipped:

Invalid queue sort order "badchar"

If this option is omitted entirely, the default is to sort by priority. The default in configuring with the mc technique is also priority.

The QueueSortOrder option is safe. If specified from the command line, sendmail will not relinquish its special privileges. ...