Re: checking for new mail

[Scott.Kramer@Corp.Sun.COM (Scott J. Kramer)]

    Message-Id: <94Jun6.233755eet_dst.92042-1@nic.funet.fi>
    From: Matti Aarnio <mea@nic.funet.fi>
    To: julio@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Julio Polo)
    Cc: zmailer@cs.toronto.edu
    Subject: Re: checking for new mail
    Date: 	Mon, 6 Jun 1994 16:37:41 -0400

    > We're planing to use zmailer on our Suns running SunOS 4.1.3 and
    > Solaris 2.3 to deliver mail to the user's home directory (into a file
    > called Inbox) instead of the usual /var/spool/mail (or /var/mail).  Has
    > anyone else run zmailer on a UNIX machine and delivered mail to users'
    > home directories?  If so, I'd like to know how you have changed your
    > login and finger programs so that they check for new mail in the new
    > location.  This is what I mean:

	Yeah, I know what you mean, but do you know how many programs
	will need to be changed ?
		(/bin/mail, /usr/ucb/mail, elm, pine, imapd, emacs, popd,
		 /usr/ucb/finger ... plus the mailer,  to name a few...)

	It MIGHT be doable, if you replace  /var/spool/mail  with an
	automount map which maps
		/var/spool/mail/$USER
	and	/var/spool/mail/$USER.lock

	to:
		$HOME/Inbox
	and	$HOME/Inbox.lock

	See what locking mechanisms are used, SVR4 (Solaris) uses ".lock".

	Actually shells usually use environment  MAIL and/or MAILPATH
	(latter is for bash, I think) to find the inbox location,
	and some of those clients use it too, but not all..
	(especially not those spawning from inetd..)

    ...
    >         Julio Polo
    >         University of Hawaii Computing Center
    >         2565 The Mall, Keller Hall
    >         Honolulu, HI 96822
    >  
    >         (808) 956-2405
    >         julio@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu

	/Matti Aarnio	<mea@nic.funet.fi> <mea@utu.fi>

Another possibility for home directory e-mail delivery is Columbia's HLFSD
(Home-Link File System Daemon), available from ftp.cs.columbia.edu:/pub/amd.

-sjk

Scott J. Kramer
Taos Mountain Software
UNIX Software Consultant