The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's GuideDon't touch /var/mail/userboxA reviewer was concerned because several times I mention using vi or other text editor to directly modify a user's mailbox, and the lack of locking when doing this can trash new mail messages that come in while the admin is working on the box. It is true that editing a user's mailbox directly is a little unsafe because when the edited box is written out, it will delete any new mail messages that came in when the editing session was active. It's better to use a mail client program like Pine that supports locks on local mailboxes. I wrote these sections the way I did because I only advocated them in an emergency situation--the admin normally shouldn't be doing this--and for the explanation, it was more to the point.
© Copyright 2000-2003 Ted Mittelstaedt. All rights reserved. |