Subject: mail drop lock

From: "David W. Small" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 21:18:50 +0100

Sirs:, (MARK?) I'm writing in response to the following....

To: [email-masked] 
    Subject: Re: Is it dangerous to remove lock files in /usr/mail?? 
    From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]> 
    Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 20:02:10 -0800 
    In-Reply-To: <lara.816017595@cern04> 
    References: <lara.816017595@cern04> 
    Sender: [email-masked] 

On 10 Nov 1995, Lara Rios wrote:
> I understand that when a user logs out without first closing pine that a
> lock file is created in /usr/mail.

This is incorrect.  If Pine crashes while it is reading the folder or
performing an update, a lock file will be left behind.  That is the only
time.  The lock files are created only when an actual file access is
done,
and are removed immediately afterwards.

Lock files should be timed out (and ignored) by Pine and other mail
software after they are 5 minutes old.

If this is not happening, then something is wrong on your system and it
needs to be investigated and/or reported to
[email-masked].

-- Mark --

My question is: Is "MAIL DROP LOCK" Different from "Lock files" ?