From owner-freebsd-security Sat Jun 8 01:36:26 1996 Return-Path: owner-security Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA10366 for security-outgoing; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 01:36:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from palmer.demon.co.uk (palmer.demon.co.uk [158.152.50.150]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA10304 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 01:36:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from palmer.demon.co.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by palmer.demon.co.uk (sendmail/PALMER-1) with ESMTP id JAA04396; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 09:13:51 +0100 (BST) To: "Karl Denninger, MCSNet" cc: pst@shockwave.com (Paul Traina), nate@sri.MT.net, softweyr@xmission.com, security@FreeBSD.ORG From: "Gary Palmer" Subject: Re: FreeBSD's /var/mail permissions In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 07 Jun 1996 16:48:01 CDT." Date: Sat, 08 Jun 1996 09:13:51 +0100 Message-ID: <4393.834221631@palmer.demon.co.uk> Sender: owner-security@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk "Karl Denninger, MCSNet" wrote in message ID : > Mail locking, to be effective, must *work across machines* so that NFS > mounts of the mail directory work. > flock() cannot be trusted to work in this environment, and in fact doesn't > even attempt to work on FreeBSD. > Does this mean we should give up on using mail? No, it means you should give up on using NFS mounting of /var/mail (or /var/spool/mail, or wherever else your local OS sticks it). NFS is an abombination at the best of times, and NFS locking even more so. THere are far more elegant solutions to the problem of distributing mail to client workstations, namely IMAP and POP. Sure, it means that people who use /usr/bin/mail to read their e-mail will be stumped, but I think that the pro's of using this form of mail distribution far outweigh the cons. (The fact that my favourite mailer, MH supports POP, SPOP, etc, has nothing to do with it :-) Gary -- Gary Palmer FreeBSD Core Team Member FreeBSD: Turning PC's into workstations. See http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/ for info