Bug#470994: Permissions of user mailboxes in /var/mail
Dear alpiners,
In Debian, the Policy currently says: "Mailboxes are generally mode 660
user.mail unless the system administrator has chosen otherwise. . . .
Mailboxes must be writable by group mail. "
<http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-customized-programs.html#s-mail-transport-agents>
This refers to the permissions of mbox files in /var/mail/. Josip Rodin
is trying to change this in Debian. In particular, he wants to remove the
requirement that the mbox files be writable by the mail group. I wanted
to ask the UW alpiners:
If Debian used mode 0600 for the mailboxes in /var/mail, would that be
okay? In particular, I'd like to know if it would cause locking problems
for alpine or the UW IMAPd. I'd be curious to also know if older versions
of PINE would also be okay with the changes.
Note that Josip's suggested change is simply to remove the "must be
writiable by group mail" sentence from the Policy, not to make a specific
recommendation. I mention 0600 for the user mbox files as an example; it
seems like the most restrictive the files could be to be useful, so if
they are less restrictive than that (al)pine should be fine as well.
As I understand things, this change would be fine - but better safe than
sorry when changing Policy!
For your entirely optional reading pleasure, the full text of Josip
Rodin's message can be found at
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.bugs.general/387931 -
I'm CC:ing the bug so this conversation can be recorded in the right place
for Debian people to review it; please keep the bug on the CC:s. Josip
quotes a message about pine from 1999 that can be found at
http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/1999/06/msg00108.html ; it seems
that Brock was mistaken, and a response can be found at
http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/1999/06/msg00124.html .
-- Asheesh.
--
Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?
A: A stick.
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