Re: Mutt loses mail
On Mon, Jan 04, 1999 at 12:57:49PM +0100, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
> In article <cistron.19990103223308.A16568@complete.org>,
> John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> wrote:
> >I notice at this point that it doesn't use the liblockfile package that
> >policy heavily suggests it uses. Policy says:
> >
> > All Debian MUAs and MTAs have to use the `maillock' and `mailunlock'
> > functions provided by the `liblockfile' packages to lock and unlock
> > mail boxes. These functions implement a NFS-safe locking mechanism.
> > (It is ok if MUAs and MTAs don't link against liblockfile but use a
> > _compatible_ mechanism. Please compare the mechanisms very carefully!)
>
> I read the source code of mutt's mutt_dotlock utility, and
> the way it does locking is OK. However it does not do both dotlocking
> AND lockf() which it should to guarantee consistency over NFS. But
> neither does liblockfile right now. Yes, that's a bug.
Do you sure that dotlocking AND lockf won't lead to deadlock in some
conditions? IMHO (and not only my, see books on Unix system administration),
NFS-shared /var/spool/mail is an ugly idea! Use imap or maildir instead.
--
Ilya Ovchinnikov -------------------------------------
Internet Service and Information
ILO2-RIPE Providing Center of Pushchino
e-mail: ilya@psn.ru Research Center of RAS
phone: +7(0967)73-90-03 Pushchino, Moscow region, Russia.
============================================================
Reply to: