Problem with Fedora1 and ipop3d

[Rick Stevens]

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 at localhost.localdomain>
> Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA
> Message-ID: <1082659817 at localhost.localdomain>
> 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.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-                He who laughs last thinks slowest.                  -
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