---
name: "qmail-start"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "qmail"
version: "1.06-6.2~deb10u1"
release: "Debian 10 (Buster)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/qmail-start"
---

# qmail-start(8)

turn on mail delivery

## NAME

qmail-start - turn on mail delivery

## SYNOPSIS

**qmail-start** \[ *defaultdelivery* \[ *logger arg ...* \] \]

## DESCRIPTION

**qmail-start** invokes **qmail-send**, **qmail-lspawn**, **qmail-rspawn**, and **qmail-clean**, under the proper uids and gids. These four daemons cooperate to deliver messages from the queue.

**qmail-start** arranges for **qmail-send**'s activity record to be sent to **qmail-start**'s output. See **[qmail-log(5)](/qmail-log/5.md)** for the format of the activity record. Other than this, **qmail-start** does not print anything, even on failure.

If *defaultdelivery* is supplied, **qmail-start** passes it to **qmail-lspawn**.

If *logger* is supplied, **qmail-start** invokes *logger* with the given arguments, and feeds **qmail-send**'s activity record through *logger*.

Environment variables given to **qmail-start** will eventually be passed on to **qmail-local**, so make sure to clean up the environment if you run **qmail-start** manually:

```
   # env - PATH="/var/lib/qmail/bin:$PATH"
   qmail-start ./Mailbox splogger qmail &
   (all on one line)
```

Resource limits, controlling ttys, et al. are also passed from **qmail-start** to **qmail-local**.

Note that **qmail-send** normally juggles several simultaneous deliveries. To reduce **qmail-send**'s impact on other programs, you can run **qmail-start** with a low priority.

## SEE ALSO

[logger(1)](/logger/1.md), splogger(1), [nice(1)](/nice/1.md), [qmail-log(5)](/qmail-log/5.md), [qmail-local(8)](/qmail-local/8.md), [qmail-clean(8)](/qmail-clean/8.md), [qmail-lspawn(8)](/qmail-lspawn/8.md), [qmail-rspawn(8)](/qmail-rspawn/8.md), [qmail-send(8)](/qmail-send/8.md)