On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Pedro I. Sanchez wrote: > Well, this is bizarre: > > # ls -l /var/spool/ > total 20 > ... > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 May 5 09:59 mail -> ../mail > ... > > # ls -l /var/ > total 72 > ... > drwxrwsr-x 2 root mail 4096 Jul 14 18:04 mail > ... > > What created this symlink? I didn't. >
Supposedly the new Linux File system standard (FHS) makes /var/mail the official location for the mail spool. A symlink to /var/spool/mail will be kept for backwards compatability. Debian is going to move to this but I don't think it's official policy yet. It looks like the maintainer of your MTA jumped the gun. Oddly enough on one of my potato systems using sendmail, the situation is backward. /var/spool/mail is a directory and /var/mail is a symlink to it. On a woody system running postfix the situation is the same. > I have quite a lot of messages like this in the mail log: > > Jul 10 09:30:39 psanchez-1 imapd[16264]: Killed (lost mailbox lock) > user=psanchez host=psanchez-1 [127.0.0.1] > > I will get rid of the symlink and test to see if that makes the > difference. I'll let you know. > Yup I suspect it was not creating the lock at all. Without a lock you stand a chance of having your mail spool corrupted. If this turns out to be the problem, file a bug against your MTA if one hasn't been filed already. -- Jaldhar H. Vyas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
