Exim Paniclog : Failed to create spool file *** : File exists

[martin MHC]

My Exim paniclog has some new entries as of a couple of days ago; stating:


2022-12-06 13:18:30 1p2XqA-00000j-OI Failed to create spool file /var/spool/exim//input/A/1p2XqA-00000j-OI-D: File exists
2022-12-07 11:54:43 1p2t0d-00000j-UV Failed to create spool file /var/spool/exim//input/d/1p2t0d-00000j-UV-D: File exists

etc. etc.

1) These look like filepath issues with the double slash exim//input , is that so? If so, how can I fix this?

2) Are these one off incidents due to, for example, possibly restarting exim or running a CPanel update while exim was operating?

Exim version cpanel-exim: 4.95-3.cp1198

 

[cPRex]

Hey hey! I'm not seeing any current issues with the Exim spooler at this time, so I can't say for sure where this would be coming from. You're always welcome to create a ticket with our team so we can take a look.

 

[martin MHC]

Hey hey! I'm not seeing any current issues with the Exim spooler at this time, so I can't say for sure where this would be coming from. You're always welcome to create a ticket with our team so we can take a look.

I dug into the folders in question and found their permissions to be... unexpected. while permissions is not the issue in this panic_log, I read some (extremely outdated 17+ yr old) advice stating:

> and make sure the permissions are 0750 for the /var/spool/exim directory

[cPanel Forum source](https://forums.cpanel.net/threads/exim-failed-need-urgent-help.27953/) and following up on this I am finding it very hard to find anything concrete telling me what the permissions should be on the exim spool folder(s) and their child folders, for Exim 4.95 . Including reading the [Exim documentation](https://www.exim.org/exim-html-4.95/doc/html/spec_html/index.html). My permissions for var/spool/exim is 755 (public read and execute) .

Would you be able to tell me what the exim owner / group / permissions should be for : /var/spool and /var/spool/exim (and the /input child of /exim) ? That would be really helpful here. Thank you !

 

[ServerHealers]

755 permission should be correct for /var/spool/exim/ directory, as I just tested this on a fresh cPanel box having Exim 4.95 and everything works fine. Here are the permission/ownership of those folders for your reference:

# stat -c Permission:%a--Owner:%U--Group:%G /var/spool/
Permission:755--Owner:root--Group:root

# stat -c Permission:%a--Owner:%U--Group:%G /var/spool/exim/
Permission:755--Owner:mailnull--Group:mail

# stat -c Permission:%a--Owner:%U--Group:%G /var/spool/exim/input/
Permission:750--Owner:mailnull--Group:mail

# stat -c Permission:%a--Owner:%U--Group:%G /var/spool/exim/input/0/
Permission:750--Owner:mailnull--Group:mail

 

[martin MHC]

@ServerHealers That's fantastic, I was just checking what I had made sense as it diverged from what was expected from some [older] documentation sources.

Many thanks, your post is much appreciated.

 

[ServerHealers]

Always happy to help!