Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 07:24:06 -0500 From: "Jay West" <jlwest@tseinc.com> To: "Sheldon Hearn" <sheldonh@uunet.co.za> Cc: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Is the "mail -u" option broken under 3.3 Release? Message-ID: <001f01bf1bbf$2b328d60$d402a8c0@tse.com> References: <33264.940492418@axl.noc.iafrica.com>
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I had previously written.... > > If I then do a "mail -u mytest", it says there is no mail for the user. But, > > if I log into the machine as mytest it says I have mail and the mail command > > retrieves it. To which Sheldon replied.... > What happens if you type ``mail -f /var/mail/mytest''? If it gives you > the same result, is any one of /var, /var/mail or /var/mail/mytest a > symlink? "mail -f /var/mail/mytest" does work. Also, this machine is a fresh install of 3.3R, so /var, /var/mail, or /var/mail/mytest are NOT symbolic links. Also, the "mail -f /var/mail/mytest" does retrieve the mail in the mailbox mytest as one would suspect (see below). On a completely different machine I tested the same thing. This machine is also 3.3R, but on this one /var/mail is a symbolic link to /usr/mail (it's a mail server but forgot to make /var filesystem bigger than the default, so a symlink was created to /usr/mail). The permissions have been checked carefully. On this machine I get the exact same results as above, with one exception. Just executing "mail -u mytest" says either "There is no mail for root" (note root, not mytest), or if there is mail for root it retrieves the mail box for root, not mytest. So, two questions... In the first case above, like I said it's a fresh install with no symlinks. I must assume the mail -u command is broken. Correct? And second, in the second case where /var/mail is a symlink, is this a known bad thing to do? I really don't want to have to reinstall this machine to make /var bigger.... ideas? STRANGE!!!! Jay West To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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