On Tue, 2 Jul 1996, Ray DeGennaro (@Home via Eudora) wrote:
I (mostly) check my mail via a POP server (which uses a lock file -- piece
of cake), but occasionally check my mail in unix via elm (which as near as
I can tell uses flock()). Both read the system mailbox, and I have no way
of changing that.
Is there a way to get procmail to use both flock() and a named lockfile?
-or-
Am I being too paranoid about elm trying to write to the system mailbox at
the same time as procmail?
No - you are not being too paranoid. I tried PROCMAIL on a mail server
that also used IPOP3D & IMAP2 without all of the possible locking
mechanisms turned on for PROCMAIL, and people's mailboxes got "touched" in
an unfriendly manner. Usually, the first two notes would have their
"From:" header record changed to "FFrom:" and "rom:", respectively.
Sometimes, it was the first 4-8 notes. Nothing else appears to have been
affected.
I have tried to duplicate the situation in a test environment, but have
not been able to with the clients that I use. Most of the users are using
the PD version of Eudora, unfortunately. I have, however, had to "clean
up" several dozen mailboxes with mangled "From:" headers.
IPOP3D's FLOCK (or is it LOCKF ?) is actually an internal subroutine that
calls FCNTL, if I remember correctly. It also uses a
/tmp/.<inode#>.<something else> type of "lock file".