On Thursday 22 April 2004 18:46, Jeff Vian wrote: > Rick Stevens wrote: > > 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? > > > > As I said in an earlier posting, ipop3d is based on Crispin's c-client > > code. So is imapd, so even though you have imapd disabled, the ipop3d > > may be inserting that message because it's done in the c-client bit. > > > > I just looked at the source code for imapd and ipop3d (for the > > terminally curious, specifically the imap-2000e version) and they both > > use the c-client "unix" driver for mailboxes. That driver inserts the > > message, so now even the POP daemon inserts the IMAP housekeeping > > message. Lovely. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > - Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - > > - VitalStream, Inc. http://www.vitalstream.com - > > - - > > - He who laughs last thinks slowest. - > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Now I am really puzzled! > > Everyone on this thread seems upset by a behavior that I know has > existed in mail on Linux for at least the last 7 years. > > Is it because you just found out about it? or is there really a problem > with this behavior? Email clients do not even see that dummy message. > Only when looking at the box contents with a text browser such as > cat/less/etc or an editor such as vi/vim/emacs/etc do you even see it. You are correct. I am having trouble with email dissappearing on my FC1 server. I've been running RH7.3 without any problems for a couple years and have never seen these messages in the user mailboxes before. I thought these were a symptom of the problem I was experiencing. However, as you and others have so kindly helped me understand, these are not error messages they are required by the server. I am currently looking at the source of my problems being either in my procmail recipe, or the ClamAV program I installed. So thank you for the help you have given me. Any more help you can offer would be appreciatted, but I think I have to better define where I'm at before I can ask for help. > > As I said earlier, it seems to be put there by the daemon serving the > mail, and I have seen it ranging from pine to mutt to other clients such > as fetchmail and mozilla. I believe it is being put there by the host, > and not sendmail or the client. I think this is more of a scare than a > problem as it is a housekeeping thing. Alexander has recently shown that.
