[Dovecot] /var/mail stickyness

[Bill Cole]

At 3:35 PM +0100 3/4/08, Edgar Fuß wrote:
>>  Anyway I also thought that /var/mail would be sticky in at least some
>>  systems. I couldn't find a single one. CentOS 5, Debian, FreeBSD 6.2,
>>  Solaris 10 none have it sticky by default.
>It seems to be sticky on NetBSD.

Whether a directory used for system mboxes 
(sometimes /var/mail, sometimes /var/spool/mail, 
sometimes /usr/spool/mail *EWWW* ) needs to be 
1777 or 0775 or Something Else is a function of 
what sort of LDA(s) and MUA(s) and mailstore 
server(s) need to access it and what some admin 
has done in the past to make it work.

The core problem is that anything changing 
mailboxes there probably needs to be able to 
create and delete both mailbox files and 
lockfiles there, so either you need to have a 
bunch of well-vetted setgid software or you need 
to use a 1777 or 3777 mail spool.

The best alternative would be a working mandatory 
lock system in the OS and good gatekeeping on the 
creation and deletion of mboxes, but that's not a 
combination that multi-platform software can 
count on...


-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com