Re: checking for new mail

[Julio Polo <julio@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>]

> 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


Yes, Robert Montjoy from the University of Cincinnati also told me
about it.  I have tried it, and it is the easiest thing to do
to fool ALL programs into think mail is still in /var/spool/mail.

Mail is delivered to a subdirectory within the user's home directory.
The hlfsd man page says it is supposed to create this subdirectory 
if it doesn't exist, but I haven't been able to make it work.

Has anyone else used hlfsd on a large (>13000 users) system?  Has anyone
tried on Solaris 2.3 yet?

Here's what Robert Montjoy told me about hlfsd:

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
  Hi..
   
  We deliver all mail to the home dir's of users. We deliver
  using sendmail mail and a locally modified version bin mail(mail.local)
  to $HOME/.mailspool/user
  Make the mode of .mailspool 3750 group hlfs  
  This makes it safer security wise too.
   
  We did not modify any Mail reading programs(elm, pine, Mail, or mailtool)
  instead we used a daemon called hlfsd(HOME LINE FILE SYSTEM daemon).
  The hlfsd daemon makes it look like the mail is in /var/spool/mail/username
  or /var/mail/username and as far as the mail programs the mail
  is stored in /var/spool/mail/username as always.
   
  You can get this program from the AMD source archive at Columbia.
  I think it is /pub/amd on ftp.cs.columbia.edu or is it ftp.ctr.columbia.edu.
  The source to it is included in the amd source. Athough you
  need to build amd to get the hlfsd built you should not have
  to install amd to get it working.
   
  Note: You will need to make finger setgid to hlfs so it can still
  determine if user has new mail.
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

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