Procmail can't create mailbox

Mark Corsi mcorsi at spearreport.com
Sat Nov 29 14:28:38 UTC 2008


My guess is that the server is seeing the process as 'other'. This leaves
two solutions. One is to start the process with sudo so it starts as root. I
would hazard a guess that this would open up an unexpected security hole
since this is a mail process. The other solution is to make the process
owner part of the group that owns that folder and make the folder group
writable. Pretty sure the second solution will maintain security while
accomplishing your goal.





-----Original Message-----
From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bob McClure Jr
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 8:36 AM
To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
Subject: Re: Procmail can't create mailbox

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 08:08:54AM -0500, Mark Corsi wrote:
> One suggestion, rather than using permissions straight out of box. Try
> setting the permissions to 777 (temporarily) to see if it is a permission
> based issue.

Yep, did that.  It works, but that's not the way it's supposed to
work.  That's my interim dodge until I find The Right Solution(tm).

> -----Original Message-----
> From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
> [mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bob McClure
Jr
> Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 7:51 AM
> To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> Subject: Re: Procmail can't create mailbox
> 
> On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 11:03:10PM -0500, Mark Corsi wrote:
> > Not what you will want to hear, but...
> > 
> > Use Sendmail. Older, more stable, runs 80% of all mail servers.
> 
> Well, ubiquity does not make superiority.  Note that Windows runs a
> similar percentage of PCs.  You wouldn't suggest that I go back to
> that, would you?
> 
> > Never ceases to amaze me when people always try to make a better widget
> than
> > one that works nearly perfectly.
> 
> I barely got the hang of configuring sendmail when it was a single
> daemon.  When it went to two daemons, I never figured out which config
> items went in which daemon's config.  Postfix is much easier to figure
> out, and IMHO more flexible.
> 
> Note also that I think procmail is the problem, not postfix.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
> > [mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bob McClure
> > Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 8:24 PM
> > To: Red Hat Install
> > Subject: Procmail can't create mailbox
> > 
> > Okay, this is driving me nuts.  Procmail can't create a mailbox for a
> > new user.  This has come up on at least four servers I manage - FC5,
> > FC6, CentOS 5.2, and now RedHat 5.2.  They are all using Postfix and
> > procmail to accept and deliver mail.  All but one involve
> > "bootlegging" in the users by copying over the normal users' passwd,
> > shadow, group, and gshadow entries, as well as their home directories
> > and/or the mail spool (/var/spool/mail).  In the most recent case
> > (RHEL 5), the /var/spool/mail directory is stock except that I created
> > an LVM device and transferred /var/spool contents to it and then
> > mounted it on /var/spool.  The permissions are right out of the box:
> > 
> > drwxrwxr-x 2 root mail 4096 Nov 28 04:02 /var/spool/mail
> > 
> > I've done a web search and found nothing useful.  My solution in each
> > case has been to make /var/spool/mail world writable, and, in at least
> > one case, added the sticky bit, to wit:
> > 
> > drwxrwxrwt 3 root mail 20480 Nov 28 16:19 /var/spool/mail
> > 
> > It works, but it's not the way it's supposed to work out of the box.
> > Selinux is disabled on all machines.  What am I missing?
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > -- 
> > Bob McClure, Jr.
> 
> Cheers,
> -- 
> Bob McClure, Jr.

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.             Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.
bob at bobcatos.com             http://www.bobcatos.com
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government
will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Isaiah 9:6 (NIV)

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