Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 20:14:18 -0800 (PST) From: Mike Meyer <mwm@phone.net> To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 'make installworld' makes /var/mail world-not-writable Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903302000530.88677-100000@guru.phone.net> In-Reply-To: <199903310258.AA09076@waltz.rahul.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tue, 30 Mar 1999, Rahul Dhesi wrote: > Unlike / and /usr and /etc, which can be considered private to each > machine, /var/mail is much more likely to be a global filesystem with a > site-wide, not machine-specific, file locking policy and permissions. Odd - I thought the *point* of the /var file system was that it contained things that VARied from machine to machine. That's why things that lived on /usr in 4.[23]BSD migrated onto it - so that /usr could be shared across machines that had the same binary format. But you're right - the default behavior for /var/mail assumes that you're not sharing it across multiple systems. On the other hand, the default MTA makes the same assumptions (or it did when I quit using it) - and you have to fix that as well. Changing the mail spool structure/permissions when you change the MTA behavior seems reasonable. As for lowering the security of the default installation to avoid that particular change - I'd say no. The only time this should really matter is upgrading from source. In that case, if /etc/make.conf sets NO_SENDMAIL to true, then /var/mail shouldn't be touched. <mike To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.4.05.9903302000530.88677-100000>