I have a server handling the mails of some 20 users. One user can suddenly no
longer receive mails (not even local one). What have happened?
Here are some details:
Mail system: FreeBSD + sendmail + procmail (.forward method; /etc/procmailrc)
Contents of the user's .forward file:
"|IFS=' '&& exec /bin/procmail -Yf- /etc/procmailrc || exit 75"
(it is the same as that of other users)
/etc/procmailrc contains (among others) the following lines:
LOCKEXT=".lock"
LOCKFILE=$HOME/$LOGNAME$LOCKEXT
It seems that these lines are ignored, since procmail tries to lock
/var/mail/logname.lock. Why? And why for this one user only? (20 other users
have no mail problem)
The procmail error message in verbose mode:
procmail: Assigning "LOCKFILE=/home/logname/logname.lock
procmail: Locking "/var/mail/logname.lock"
procmail: Error while writing to /var/mail/_WWD%U0nW9.server.some.where"
procmail: Assigning "LASTFOLDER=/var/mail/logname"
procmail: Opening "/var/mail/logname"
procmail: Error while writing to "/var/mail/logname"
(where "logname" stands for the name of the user concerned)
Other users do not have mail problems; their verbose log is like this:
procmail: Assigning "LOCKFILE=/home/logname/logname.lock"
procmail: Bypassed locking "/var/mail/logname.lock"
procmail: Assigning "LASTFOLDER=/var/mail/logname"
procmail: Opening "/var/mail/logname"
procmail: Acquiring kernel-lock
From: ...
Subject: ...
Folder:
procmail: Unlocking "/home/logname/logname.lock"
Why is locking /var/mail/logname.lock bypassed for other users and not for this
one?
Why is kernel lock requested for other users and not for this one user?
What is that "Error while writing to /var/mail/_WWD%U0nW9.server.some.where"
error for that miserable user?