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Date:      Thu, 12 Nov 1998 16:25:58 -0800 (PST)
From:      Doug White <dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu>
To:        "Brian C. Grayson" <bgrayson@marvin.ece.utexas.edu>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: /var/mail mode changed???
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.03.9811121625050.24229-100000@resnet.uoregon.edu>
In-Reply-To: <19981111203750.B28874@marvin.ece.utexas.edu>

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On Wed, 11 Nov 1998, Brian C. Grayson wrote:

>   I did an install of FreeBSD today, and it clobbered permissions
> on our NFS-mounted /var/mail (changed the group to 6, which
> doesn't map to anything on our other machines, and changed
> permissions from 01777 to 0775).  Is there any way of controlling
> whether or not the install should do this?  It's a bit
> disconcerting, as after the change mutt is not able to read mail
> without overriding dotlocking, which might confuse the average user.
> 
>   I realize 01777 isn't the safest setting, but it works for us
> on our collection of operating systems and mail clients and
> daemons.  Maybe the install could prompt if it saw an existing
> /var/mail that was NFS-mounted???

You are aware of the dangers of a NFS mounted /var/mail, aren't you?  In
general it's highly discouraged due to potential spool corruption.

To improve the permissions on the mail spool, make all of your mail
program sgid mail.

Doug White                               
Internet:  dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu    | FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite    | www.freebsd.org


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