From: brunkhorst@mayo.edu (Geoff Brunkhorst)
Subject: re:  Mail.app not reading /usr/spool/mail directory...
Reply-To: brunkhorst@mayo.edu
Organization: Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN. Campus
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 13:34:16 GMT

In article <92205.160222NICKERSN@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> Steven A. Nickerson  
<NICKERSN@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes:
> After finally getting my sendmail.cf file to work properly
> I can receive and send mail from out NeXT, but now Mail.app
> won't read incoming mail for me.   I have to open a Shell
> and read mail in the "standard" way (i.e. with "mail").
> Anyone have any ideas...?
> Thanks in advance

verify your /usr/spool/mail directory has write permissions from the Mail.app

NeXTanswers states
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Q:  I'm in a very heterogeneous environment.  My /usr/spool/mail directory is  
mounted from another machine (a Sun Sparcstation).  I'd like to use the NeXT  
Mail app, but it won't fetch my mail.  The little letters don't even pop up in  
the envelope!  I know I have mail because the Berkeley Mail program works, and  
so does biff and from.

A: The NeXTMail app needs to write a lock file in the /usr/spool/mail  
directory.  If it can't write that file, it can't even check for mail.  

First, check the permissions, groups and owners of /usr/spool/mail.  This is  
what we found at one site:

myhostname > ls -ltdg /usr/spool/mail
drwxrwxr-x  3 root     mail       1024 Jan 28 15:46 /usr/spool/mail/

They had created a new group, called "mail" and made that the group of the  
/usr/spool/mail directory.  They then only gave that group and the owner of the  
directory (root) the ability to write to that directory.  The administrators of  
the network apparently did this for security's sake.   

Mail.app has two executables which need to do stuff in /usr/spool/mail, and  
their owners come from the factory as:

myhostname> ls -ltg /NextApps/Mail.app/M*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root     wheel     245760 Nov 18 21:25 Mail*
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root     wheel      24576 Nov 15 15:11 MailFetch*

Thus Mail can't write in the spool directory, and can't check your mail  
apparently.  If you change both Mail's and MailFetch's group to mail and make  
them setgroupid, you'll solve this problem.  

myhostname> su
Password:
myhostname# chgrp mail /NextApps/Mail.app/Mail /NextApps/Mail.app/MailFetch
myhostname# chmod g+s /NextApps/Mail.app/Mail /NextApps/Mail.app/MailFetch
myhostname# ls -ltg /NextApps/Mail.app/M*
-rwxr-sr-x  1 root     mail     245760 Nov 18 21:25 Mail*
-r-xr-sr-x  1 root     mail      24576 Nov 15 15:11 MailFetch*

One other possible solution is to set /usr/spool/mail to mode 1777:

myhostname% ls -ldg /usr/spool/mail
drwxrwxrwt  9 root     wheel      25600 Jan 28 14:20 /usr/spool/mail/

Note the sticky bit is turned on (the high-order 1 in the 1777, for you  
non-geeks out there!).  This means that even though everyone can write to the  
directory other things control file deletion.  This is the same mode we use in  
/tmp.  Depending on the installation, this solution may or may not be  
appropriate.

QA678

Valid for 2.0

-------------------------------------------------------------
I ran into this last week after blindly believing COPS which
told me write access to that directory is considered a security risk
(It probably is, but...).
  
- Geoff
--
"The only thing obsoleted by Windows 3.1 is poking myself in the
eye with a pointed stick." - Gene Lee
---------------------------------------------------------------
Geoffrey Brunkhorst, RCF                    brunkhorst@Mayo.edu
Guggenheim 10                                    (507) 284-1805
Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN, 55905 USA     fax (507) 284-5231 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin