On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Vincent Danen wrote: > No, wait... these are IMAP clients. Now here's a problem... > courier-imap doesn't deliver mail. Do we do the mkdir() when they > check for POP3 mail? So what happens to the mail before they do a POP3 > check? Where does it go if no Maildir. > > I guess we patch postfix to make this then (maybe it already does, I > don't know). > > The difference with things like ~/Desktop or ~/Mail or ~/nsmail, or > even ~/.bash_history, is they are not required before an application > needs them. Nothing else depends on .bash_history but bash. Nothing > needs ~/nsmail other than Netscape and similiar proggies. Postfix will > not deliver to ~/nsmail, so it doesn't need to exist. > > If a sysadmin wants to use maildirs, the MTA will deliver to a Maildir > before the program we're talking about (courier-imap, etc.) does > anything about it. The ~/Maildir/ needs to exist before it is accessed > by a program. Ideally, to reduce work for the sysadmin, it should be > part of the base system. >
The problem is that IMAP servers will fail authentication if the Maildir does not exist, which can be confusing, and also is totally different to ~/Mail (does kmail refuse to start if ~/Mail does not exist?). > Now, should it be done for some contribs apps? Probably not. But I > think we should configure procmail/postfix/etc. to default to maildirs. > It's better, no matter how you look at it. While the only POP/IMAP server in main doesn't support Maildir??? That is more of a support nightmare than providing a script to generate Maildir's. I have run such as script before on a production system, created 700 Maildir's in a few seconds .. we just need to provide a suitable script ... > > Another, better, question to ask is: do we pre-create /var/spool/mail? > Absolutely we do. It's provided by filesystem. > > So why doesn't postfix or sendmail or (insert favourite program here) > do a mkdir() on /var/spool/mail first? > > IMHO, /etc/skel/Maildir belongs in etcskel. Buchan -- |----------------Registered Linux User #182071-----------------| Buchan Milne Mechanical Engineer, Network Manager Cellphone * Work +27 82 472 2231 * +27 21 8828820x121 Stellenbosch Automotive Engineering http://www.cae.co.za GPG Key http://ranger.dnsalias.com/bgmilne.asc 1024D/60D204A7 2919 E232 5610 A038 87B1 72D6 AC92 BA50 60D2 04A7
