EXINEXT(8)

✨ EXINEXT(8) — the exinext page, bestie edition 💅

okay so quick vibe check: we're in section 8 of the System Manager's Manual, the page is called exinext, and it's literally just about finding individual retry times. that's it. that's the whole personality. 🎀

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🌸 NAME 🌸

exinext — finding individual retry times. yes bestie, that's the job. it fishes retry times out of the database for you. 💖

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

exinext address|message-id

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so there's this utility called exinext (and ngl, it's mostly a Perl script 🐪), and what it does is give you the ability to fish specific information out of the retry database. iconic behavior honestly.

here's the deal: you hand it a mail domain (or a full, complete address) and it goes and looks up the hosts for that domain, then prints out any retry info it finds — for the hosts or for the domain itself. 💫

right now — like, at present, as the kids say — the way it gets that retry info is by running exim_dumpdb (see below, bestie 👀) and then processing the output. so that's the whole pipeline. no cap.

for example, watch this:

exinext piglet@milne.fict.example
kanga.milne.fict.example:192.168.8.1 error 146: Connection refused
  first failed: 21-Feb-1996 14:57:34
  last tried:   21-Feb-1996 14:57:34
  next try at:  21-Feb-1996 15:02:34
roo.milne.fict.example:192.168.8.3 error 146: Connection refused
  first failed: 20-Jan-1996 13:12:08
  last tried:   21-Feb-1996 11:42:03
  next try at:  21-Feb-1996 19:42:03
  past final cutoff time

look at that. roo over there is straight up past final cutoff time 😭 it's giving doomed. we love a dramatic exit.

you can also give exinext a local part all on its own, no domain attached, and it will hand you any retry information for that local part in your default domain. so like, just the local part. it knows where to look. queen shit. 👑

and here's another thing: you can use a message id to get the retry information that pertains to one specific message. ⭐

heads up though — this only exists when an attempt to deliver a message to a remote host suffers a message-specific error (see section 42.2). so it's not always a thing. it's conditional, bestie. 🙈

one more honest moment: exinext is not particularly efficient. lowkey slow. but also — it's not expected to be run very often, so honestly? who cares. it's a special occasion tool. main character energy that only shows up when needed. 💅

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💀 BUGS 💀

okay so this manual page needs a major re-work. fr fr. 😭

if somebody out there knows better groff than us and has more experience writing manual pages, then any patches would be greatly appreciated. 🫶 like genuinely. we're asking nicely. please. this is a cry for help wrapped in a manpage. 🌸

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🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

• exim(8)
• /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

this manual page was stitched together from spec.txt by Andreas Metzler <ametzler at downhill.at.eu.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system — but like, it may be used by others too. sharing is caring. 💖

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System Manager's Manual · March 26, 2003 · EXINEXT(8) 🌈

and that's the whole page bestie, ty for coming to my ted talk, go forth and check your retry times responsibly 💅✨🦋