Subject: Pine 3.95 has trouble creating lock file

From: Jon Morrow <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 22:40:59 -0400 (EDT)

Hi.  I upgraded from Pine 3.91 to Pine 3.95 on a Linux system tonight.
I installed the pre-compiled Linux/ELF versions of Pine 3.95, Pico 2.9,
and imapd 7.8(100) from the washington.edu ftp site.

Pine 3.95 *seems* to work, except that when it is invoked by a user other
than root, it briefly displays an error message on starting: "Error
creating /var/spool/mail/goofy.845962142.184.obgyn.mssm.edu: permission
denied".

Pine 3.91 didn't (and still doesn't -- I kept a copy) have this problem.

The directory /var/spool/mail is owned by root:mail, mode 775.

I can't figure out why Pine 3.95 should have trouble creating a lock file
in this directory, especially since Pine 3.91 doesn't have.  I can't find
any reference to this problem in any of the documentation I've been able
to get my hands on.

Can anybody help?

Thanks,
-jon

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From: Jon Morrow <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 22:48:44 -0400 (EDT)

> any reference to this problem in any of the documentation I've been able

Yes, Mark Crispin could.  His reply to my message the Pine support team
followed the robot-generated
"we'll-do-our-best-but-don't-count-on-a-reply-in-the-near-future" message
by about two minutes -- not *quite* fast enough to catch me before I
posted my problem here.

A simple 'chmod 1777 /var/spool/mail' did the trick.  (Evidently, Pine
3.91 also couldn't create the lock file, but it didn't bother reporting
it.) 

-jon

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 00:27:26 -0700

On 21 Oct 1996, james hebert wrote:
> Jon Morrow ([email-masked]) wrote:
> : A simple 'chmod 1777 /var/spool/mail' did the trick.  (Evidently, Pine
> : 3.91 also couldn't create the lock file, but it didn't bother reporting
> : it.) 
> 
> Doesn't this mean users can delete each others mail???

No.  That's what the 1000 bit (the sticky bit) prevents.

-- Mark --	Read http://www.imap.org for the "best kept secret in email"

DoD #0105, R90/6 pilot, FAX: (206) 685-4045  ICBM: N 47 39'35" W 122 18'39"
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.

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From: jhebert@I_should_put_my_domain_in_etc_NNTP_INEWS_DOMAIN (james hebert)
Date: 21 Oct 1996 04:15:55 GMT

: -jon

Please Cc me a copy of your followups. (I almost never read news...)

Jim Hebert
[email-masked]