This is what is in /var/log/exim4. As you can see, thae paniclog still has the same ownership and rights as everything else in the directory.

Marc

root@quixote:/var/log/exim4# ls
total 88
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm 10728 Nov 30 15:13 mainlog
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm 31961 Nov 30 07:53 mainlog.1
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1036 Nov 21 08:02 mainlog.10.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1426 Nov 29 07:45 mainlog.2.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1241 Nov 28 07:41 mainlog.3.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1170 Nov 27 07:52 mainlog.4.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1172 Nov 26 07:55 mainlog.5.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1160 Nov 25 07:42 mainlog.6.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1167 Nov 24 07:36 mainlog.7.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1168 Nov 23 07:56 mainlog.8.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm  1148 Nov 22 07:54 mainlog.9.gz
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm   740 Nov 30 15:13 paniclog
-rw-r----- 1 Debian-exim adm     0 Nov  9 23:14 rejectlog
                             -----



On 11/30/21 15:07, dng@??? wrote:
> On 01-12-2021 00:00, Marc Shapiro via Dng wrote:
>> I am getting e-mails like the one below all the time, now.  I had
>> this problem once before and I think that all I had to do was clear
>> the paniclog with '> paniclog', but that does not seem to be working,
>> now.  I cleared it this morning, and when I just checked it was
>> filling up again.  It looks like I get three lines every half hour. 
>> This is preventing me from receiving e-mails sent by a cron job that
>> runs a backup script.  Any ideas on how to get rid of this and not
>> have it come back would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Marc
>>
>> e-mail showing paniclog:
>>
>> exim paniclog /var/log/exim4/paniclog on quixote.home has non-zero
>> size, mail system might be broken. Up to 10 lines are quoted below.
>>
>> 2021-11-30 06:00:19 1momA3-00054k-DE ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 06:30:19 1mrJnB-00026m-53 ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 06:30:20 1mmEkA-00009l-Jr ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 06:30:20 1momA3-00054k-DE ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 07:00:19 1mrJnB-00026m-53 ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 07:00:19 1mmEkA-00009l-Jr ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 07:00:19 1momA3-00054k-DE ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 07:30:19 1mrJnB-00026m-53 ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 07:30:20 1mmEkA-00009l-Jr ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>> 2021-11-30 07:30:20 1momA3-00054k-DE ==marc@??? R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool defer (-1): Tainted '/var/mail/marc' (file or directory
>> name for mail_spool transport) not permitted
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dng mailing list
>> Dng@???
>> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
>
> You probably used a UID/GID to clear paniclog which exim cannot write
> to because different group or no group or other rights.
>
> Grtz
>
> Nick
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dng mailing list
> Dng@???
> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng