Re: Mailagent package broken?

[Behan Webster <behanw@verisim.com>]

> Mannually adding more rights seems to solve that, but the log file keeps
> complaining:
> 
>   mailagent[6]: starting SAVE /var/spool/mail/ben
>   mailagent[6]: WARNING could not lock /var/spool/mail/ben
>   mailagent[6]: WARNING was unable to get any lock on /var/spool
>   /mail/ben
>   mailagent[6]: ERROR could not save mail in /var/spool/mail/ben
> 

Are you running mailagent as a user?  Because if you are it's
probably a problem with the permissions on /var/spool/mail.
Normal users shouldn't be able to create files in this directory
(arguable security risk).

Unfortunately to do mail file locking one must make a .lock file
in the same directory as the mail file you are locking. This means
having write access to /var/spool/mail.  Currently in debian (if
memory serves) only root and mail have write permission to this
directory.

If this is the problem, one fix (albeit one that causes an
arguable security risk) is to do a:

chmod o+w /var/spool/mail


Hope this helps!

Behan

-- 
Behan Webster
behanw@verisim.com
(613) 224-7547