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Date:      Thu, 31 Oct 1996 16:48:21 -0500 (EST)
From:      "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@ki.net>
To:        Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM>
Cc:        chat@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: /var/mail (was: re: Help, permission problems...)
Message-ID:  <Pine.NEB.3.95.961031164131.8545T-100000@quagmire.ki.net>
In-Reply-To: <MailManager.846796231.5917.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM>

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On Thu, 31 Oct 1996, Mark Crispin wrote:

> > > For your information, there are sites which use imapd to access
> > > NFS-mounted spools.
> > 	Sounds like that defeats the purpose (or, perceived purpose) of
> > IMAP.
> 
> Yes, it does.  But people do it.  They do it even after they are told not to
> do it.
> 
> I haven't even mentioned the PC users who expect to NFS-mount a UNIX mail
> spool using their PC NFS software and read their mail on the PC using Eudora.
> "The horror, the horror..."
>
	But, by supporting it, you encourage it *shrug*

> > I think that if 1777 is considered "appropriate" for
> > IMAP, there should also be a check to see if the spool is NFS-mounted and
> > give an error accordingly for that too
> 
> I don't understand what you gain by giving a "Your mail file is NFS mounted, I
> won't let you read it" error.
>

	More then you gain by having the software inform me that the 
permissions on my /var/mail don't meet your requirements?  You are teaching
new system administrators that NFS-mountd spools are "A Very Bad Thing(tm)"

	As for how:

	stat("/var/mail");

	Solaris 2.5.1, FreeBSD and Linux are the only OSs I have access to
currently, and they all support it...and, from what I can tell, their
structures are all identical (I believe the field you would want to use is
'rdev')

Marc G. Fournier                                  scrappy@ki.net
Systems Administrator @ ki.net               scrappy@freebsd.org




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