--- name: "exiwhat" section: "8" platform: "linux" package: "exim4-base" version: "4.98.2-1+deb13u4" release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/exiwhat" --- # exiwhat(8) Finding out what Exim processes are doing ## NAME exiwhat - Finding out what Exim processes are doing ## SYNOPSIS **exiwhat** ## DESCRIPTION On operating systems that can restart a system call after receiving a signal (most modern OS), an **Exim** process responds to the SIGUSR1 signal by writing a line describing what it is doing to the file exim-process.info in the Exim spool directory. The **exiwhat** script sends the signal to all **Exim** processes it can find, having first emptied the file. It then waits for one second to allow the **Exim** processes to react before displaying the results. In order to run **exiwhat** successfully you have to have sufficient privilege to send the signal to the **Exim** processes, so it is normally run as root. Unfortunately, the **ps** command which **exiwhat** uses to find **Exim** processes varies in different operating systems. Not only are different options used, but the format of the output is different. For this reason, there are some system configuration options that configure exactly how **exiwhat** works. If it doesn't seem to be working for you, check the following compile-time options: - *EXIWHAT\_PS\_CMD* the command for running “ps” - *EXIWHAT\_PS\_ARG* the argument for “ps” - *EXIWHAT\_EGREP\_ARG* the argument for “egrep” to select from “ps” output - *EXIWHAT\_KILL\_ARG* the argument for the “kill” command An example of typical output from **exiwhat** is ``` 164 daemon: -q1h, listening on port 25 10483 running queue: waiting for 0tAycK-0002ij-00 (10492) 10492 delivering 0tAycK-0002ij-00 to mail.ref.example [10.19.42.42] (editor@ref.example) 10592 handling incoming call from [192.168.243.242] 10628 accepting a local non-SMTP message ``` The first number in the output line is the process number. The third line has been split here, in order to fit it on the page. ## BUGS This manual page needs a major re-work. If somebody knows better groff than us and has more experience in writing manual pages, any patches would be greatly appreciated. ## SEE ALSO [**exim**(8)](/exim/8.md), /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/ ## AUTHOR This manual page was stitched together from spec.txt by Andreas Metzler \, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).