Monitor mailboxes for corruption

Q I run a mail server. Can you tell me how I can monitor mailboxes for corruption?

A Have a look for this error in the mail log /var/log/maillog): 'File isn't in mbox format - Couldn't open INBOX' If you find it, the mailbox is definitely corrupted. To avoid checking mailboxes manually, here's a script you can use:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os, sys, re
mailpath = '/var/mail'
mailboxes = os.listdir(mailpath)
re_valid = re.compile('From\s+[^\s]', re.I)
mailboxes.sort()
for m in mailboxes:
fn = mailpath + os.sep + m
if not os.path.isdir(fn):
f = open(fn, 'r')
l = f.readline()
if l:
if re_valid.match(l):
continue
print "Invalid: %s" % m

Name the script verifymailboxes.bin and run it with python veryfimailboxes.bin

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