On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Ray Curtis wrote:
> >>>>> "mn" == Matt Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> mn> a user on my system just reported a problem using mail(1) to delete
> mn> some at(1) logfiles. i use pine instead of mail(1), so i hadn't seen
> mn> the problem before. below is a sample of the problem:
>
> mn> man:mnelson> mail
> mn> Mail version 8.1 6/6/93. Type ? for help.
> mn> "/var/spool/mail/mnelson": 1 message 1 new
> >> N 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Jun 23 08:50 13/373 "test"
> mn> & d
> mn> & q
> mn> Unable to lock mailbox: Permission denied
> mn> man:mnelson>
>
> mn> this happens on RedHat 5.1/Intel and 5.0/Alpha (both fully updated). pine
> mn> doesn't have any problems deleting messages.
>
> mn> after a few minutes of poking around, i couldn't find the cause of the
> mn> problem, hence this message.
>
> mn> any ideas?
>
> Yes, I suggest you subscribe to the announce-list at redhat, however:
wow, pretty arrogant. i *do* subscribe to the announce-list; i've done so
since it was created.
> Various problems have been found in metamail, elm, and mailx. Thanks to
> the Linux Security Auditing Team for finding these problems.
>
> Red Hat 5.0 and 5.1
> - -------------------
>
> i386:
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/5.1/i386/metamail-2.7-16.i386.rpm
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/5.1/i386/elm-2.4.25-14.i386.rpm
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/5.1/i386/mailx-8.1.1-2.i386.rpm
>
> alpha:
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/5.1/alpha/metamail-2.7-16.alpha.rpm
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/5.1/alpha/elm-2.4.25-14.alpha.rpm
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/5.1/alpha/mailx-8.1.1-2.alpha.rpm
had you actually *read* my message, you would have seen the phrase "fully
updated" in my description of what version of RH i am using. i am using
these exact packages. better luck next time; your stab-in-the dark may
hit something...
in the meantime, i've figured out a little more. if i 'strace mail' and
then try to delete my messages, i see that mail(1) is trying to create a
lockfile in /var/spool/mail (called something like
/var/spool/mail/.man.dynatec.com.63f8d). of course it fails, since users
don't have permission to write stuff like that into /var/spool/mail.
question: is there an environment variable that can re-direct mail(1) to
write its lock files someplace else? the man page doesn't seem to
indicate so, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
informal poll: does anybody use mail(1)?
-matt
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Nelson
Dynamics Technology, Inc.
21311 Hawthorne Blvd., Suite 300, Torrance, CA 90503-5610
Voice: (310) 543-5433 FAX: (310) 543-2117 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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