OT: Use Thunderbird to pick up ROOT Mail?

[Jacques B.]

On 9/20/07, Mike McCarty <Mike.McCarty at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I'd like to configure Thunderbird (and/or /root/.forward) so
> that e-mail to root shows up in my INBOX, and a filter automatically
> puts it into a Thunderbird folder (root). So far, I have not been
> successful in this. I have Thunderbird pulling using POP from my
> ISP. Anyone have advice?
>
> Mike

I was able to get my local mail (for current user) with Evolution (not
sure if Thunderbird allows that as well).  You can configure it to to
bring in Standard Unix mbox or spool directory. However it can't bring
root in as an unpriviledged user.  Your solutions are either to setup
a root cron job that runs a script that copies the root mail file to a
new name where a local user has priviledge to read it (I copied it
over and then did a send/receive and got all of root's mail).  Or you
could create a new group and add your unpriviledged user to it and
then change ownership/priviledge on the root mail file to allow that
group to be able to read it.  There is a potential security risk there
obviously granted if all you give is read access then the worse that
would happen is someone who compromises your user account would have
read access to root's mail.

Jacques B.