1998-09-28-13:41:28 era eriksson:
I figured the FAQ (and eventually, even the documentation) could
benefit from an explanation of what exactly a "folder" is.
How about:
"A folder is a data structure for holding email messages. There are many
different mail folder formats. One widely-used format is called "mbox"
format; this is a single file, containing one or more messages
concatenated; each message begins with a line starting "From ". Another
popular folder format is MH, in which the folder is a directory, and each
message is a separate file; the filenames are the message numbers. Another
popular folder format is Maildir; a Maildir folder is a directory, with
three subdirectories named "tmp", "new", and "cur". Messages are written
into "tmp", then moved to "new" to commit the delivery. As messages are
read, they're moved from "new" to "cur", and renamed to append flags for
the message status. In Maildir folders the files have long, complex names
intended to ensure that all filenames are unique. Maildir is the only mail
folder format that requires no locking."
One idea I think I like, but don't have the time to do right now, is include
a short appendix with some brief tips for people who would like some kind of
more or less scientific method for finding out what format a mail folder is
in.
The above description works for me:-).
(Somewhere in the FAQ, I would like to have instructions for figuring out
your MX host(s), too.)
For modern Unixes:
host -t mx `hostname`
For older ones:
(echo set q=mx;hostname)|nslookup
-Bennett