Re: Problem with Fedora1 and ipop3d

Tim Alberts wrote:

I've learned that if I set the /var/spool/mail folder permission to 777, I no longer get the following error.

Mailbox Vulnerable - Directory /var/spool/mail must have 1777 protection

It seems odd that something requires worldwriteable access to the /var/spool/mail folder.


However, the main problem persists that if I use kmail to retrieve email from the pop3 server, the /var/spool/mail/user email file gets written with the message:

From MAILER-DAEMON Thu Apr 22 11:50:17 2004

Date: 22 Apr 2004 11:50:17 -0700
From: Mail System Internal Data <MAILER-DAEMON@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA
Message-ID: <1082659817@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
X-IMAP: 1082659816 0000000002
Status: RO

This text is part of the internal format of your mail folder, and is not
a real message.  It is created automatically by the mail system software.
If deleted, important folder data will be lost, and it will be re-created
with the data reset to initial values.

A few people have hinted that imapd writes this to a mail file to keep track of which emails have been read. How can this be happening if I have the imapd disabled?

This does not appear to be an imap feature per se.

When I use pine on my machine, and then look at the user mbox file with less I see the same.
On my current setup I am using mozilla to read mail from the user inbox, and store it in separate mbox folders for organizational purposes. Each of those mboxes that mozilla created has exactly the same beginning header.

I believe it gets rewritten everytime you completely read all mail in the box so the pop/imap/?? server knows what date/time stamp to look at for deciding if the mail has previously been read or not.

At least mine gets updated with a new date/time each time I read something in the mbox.