Re: Bug#470994: mail_spool default mode is 0660
On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 09:56:52PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Josip Rodin <joy@debbugs.entuzijast.net> writes:
> > Okay, given that I see no rationale for the sentence "Mailboxes must be
> > writable by group mail.", I'm reassigning this to debian-policy.
> >
> > There is an ancient bug #24772 that was closed without a proper
> > justification (it appears to have been rejected because it was in limbo
> > with regard to the policy process).
>
> I don't know what the original Debian rationale was, but the traditional
> UNIX rationale for group-writable user mail spools is so that you don't
> have to run your mail system as root and can instead run it as some other
> user in group mail.
>
> However, everyone seems to have given up on that or at least uses a
> setuid-root MDA, so I'm not sure it's serving any real purpose at this
> point.
Or they don't use root at all for the MDA, instead setuid'ing to the user
itself. See also #405584.
--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.
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