Email permissions - was Email embarrasment
On Fri, Apr 13, 2001 at 05:14:39PM -0400, Rob Mahurin wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 13, 2001 at 08:22:42PM +0200, Johann Spies wrote:
> > Thanks Tim. This helped me to discover that she could see the mail
> > queue using mailq when she is root and not as normal user. Adding her
> > to the group mail seemed to fix the problem.
>
> Hmm --- that's a bad solution, since users in group mail can read all
> of the mailboxen in /var/mail. If she's the only user on her laptop
> (and thus has the only mailbox, no security issues) this might work
> for you, but you should be aware that you probably haven't fixed the
> real problem and it may bite you again later.
OK, I did not realise that so I went back and investigate and found
something that I do not understand. I removed her from the group mail
by editing the /etc/group file (is there another way of doing this?).
Then I sent three test messages: one using xfmail (which is working
again), one using netscape and one using the mail-command from the
console.
As user hs I did a mailq with the following result:
-------------------------------------------------
49m 618 14oLCK-0000AE-00 <hspies@adept.co.za>
jhspies@adept.co.za
48m 657 14oLDB-0000AL-00 <hspies@adept.co.za>
jhspies@adept.co.za
---------------------------------------------------
As root I did a mailq:
------------------------------------------------------
49m 618 14oLCK-0000AE-00 <hspies@adept.co.za>
jhspies@adept.co.za
48m 657 14oLDB-0000AL-00 <hspies@adept.co.za>
jhspies@adept.co.za
47m 707 14oLEu-0000BP-00 <hspies@adept.co.za>
jhspies@adept.co.za
------------------------------------------------------
The netscape message was missing from hs' mailq. Why?
In /var/spool/exim/input there is:
--------------------
total 24
-rw------- 1 mail mail 121 Apr 14 10:14 14oLCK-0000AE-00-D
-rw------- 1 mail mail 800 Apr 14 10:14 14oLCK-0000AE-00-H
-rw------- 1 mail mail 139 Apr 14 10:15 14oLDB-0000AL-00-D
-rw------- 1 mail mail 855 Apr 14 10:15 14oLDB-0000AL-00-H
-rw------- 1 mail mail 130 Apr 14 10:17 14oLEu-0000BP-00-D
-rw------- 1 mail mail 886 Apr 14 10:17 14oLEu-0000BP-00-H
---------------------
I remember that either netscape or xfmail asked me to change the
permissions on /var/mail to 01777.
That is not what it is on my system. Can that be the cause of this
all?
Regards.
Johann
--
J.H. Spies - Tel. 082 782 0336. Posbus 4668, Tygervallei 7536
"Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you
who hope in the Lord." Psalm 31:24
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