Re: The 'mail' system account

[Sam Watkins <swatkins@fastmail.fm>]

On Sun, Dec 26, 2004 at 03:02:49PM +0700, David Garamond wrote:
> In what package is the 'mail' system account defined and how do I find 
> this out? I've seen 'mail' even in the most minimalist installations 
> (without exim or mailx), but I'm not sure that if I put stuffs in 
> /var/mail it won't get deleted when some package removal include the 
> removal of the 'mail' system account.

/var/mail isn't a system account, it's infrastructure.

I guarantee no package is going to delete /var/mail when you uninstall
it.  Anyway, when you uninstall a package, it won't even delete
directories it owns if they aren't empty.

If /var/mail were in a package, you would be able to find out which
package by typing:

  dpkg -S /var/mail

I'm not sure exactly when it gets created it in the first place,
but it should be present on every system; mail is an essential part of
the system, for example cron and debconf need it to send you email.