Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 10:29:17 -0300 From: Fernan Aguero <fernan@iib.unsam.edu.ar> To: Mailing Lists Catcher <freebsd@kibserv.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: explain annoying "You have XXX mail messages" Message-ID: <20031004132917.GA59363@iib.unsam.edu.ar> In-Reply-To: <1065221495.1847.11.camel@butters> References: <20031003210850.GE28891@iib.unsam.edu.ar> <1065221495.1847.11.camel@butters>
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+----[ Mailing Lists Catcher <freebsd@kibserv.org> (03.Oct.2003 19:53): | | I don't know if this applies now but before I ran my own mail server I | used to see that sort of thing after I su'd so another account. For | instance if I logged in as <user> but su'd to a root it would tell me I | had mail but when I used the mail command it said no mail for <user>. I | forget how I was able to read root mail but I think it had something to | do with using su -m... Hi! Thanks for the reply. Yes I know this happens ... I can su to other users and see the 'You have mail.' message. However if I read mail for that user, and say, delete all messages, after I exit (/var/mail/user is now an empty file) and reenter I don't see this message anymore. | Anyhow root normally gets mail all the time from crontab and periodic | daily/weekly/monthly/security runs. | | Or Have a look in var/mail/root and others to see who has the mail. | Also use the mail command on the account you get the messages from next. I'm using the default sendmail that comes with freebsd. All mail to root gets redirected to me (alias root: fernan@localhost). And yes, I receive all the mails from root's cron jobs and periodic scripts. Still, /var/mail/fernan is empty all the time (I use procmail to deliver to ~/mail/inbox), and there's no /var/mail/root (since it is redirected to myseldf). All other users in the system have empty /var/mail/$USER files, since I'm the only user in the system :) So ... I'm still intrigued: i) I don't get 'You have mail.' but 'You have 50 mail messages.' That is to say ... the message is different, perhaps someone out there can identify the program that produces this kind of messages upon entering the shell? ii) ~/mail/inbox does not have 50 mail messages, it has thousands. Also, there are no new or unread messages ... iii) if I type 'mail', right after receiving the message, I get 'No mail for fernan.' as a reply. Thanks for any tip or suggestion, Fernan | | | On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 17:08, Fernan Aguero wrote: | > Hi! | > | > I'd like to understand why every time I open a new terminal | > (or just type 'csh' in a terminal) I get a message similar | > to: | > | > You have XXX mail messages. | > | > The default mailbox (/var/mail/fernan) is empty, since I | > use procmail to deliver messages to several different | > mailboxes under ~/mail. | > | > Still, I keep receving this message all the time. Right now | > it says I have 50 messages. What are they? Where are they? | > | > I've already read the man pages for csh(1), looked in | > sourced rc files (~/.cshrc, /etc/csh.cshrc, ~/.login, | > /etc/csh.login) and, as far as I can see, there is nothing | > that looks like checking on available messages. | > | > It's been also difficult to google a common phrase like 'you | > have mail messages' to look for already answered questions. | > | > I apologize is this is a FAQ. | > | > Thanks in advance, | > | > Fernan | -- | Mailing Lists Catcher <freebsd@kibserv.org> | MGM Communications LLC & kibserv | | +----] -- F e r n a n A g u e r o http://genoma.unsam.edu.ar/~fernan
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