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This draft uses the revised wording for /var/mail as discussed here
after the release of draft #1. In addition, the /var/lib text was moved
so that it appears in the expected alphabetical order in the /var
section.
You might want to download and read the entire text if you haven't yet
read the first FHS 2.1 pre-draft, especially if you haven't read FHS
2.0 in a while.
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5.8 /var/mail : User mailbox files
The mail spool must be accessible through /var/mail and the mail spool
files must take the form <username>. /var/mail may be a symbolic link
to another directory.
User mailbox files in this location should be stored in the standard
UNIX mailbox format.
BEGIN RATIONALE
The logical location for this directory was changed from /var/spool/mail
in order to bring FHS in-line with nearly every UNIX implementation.
This change is important for inter-operability since a single /var/mail
is often shared between multiple hosts and multiple UNIX implementations
(despite NFS locking issues).
It is important to note that there is no requirement to physically move
the mail spool to this location. However, programs and header files
should be changed to use /var/mail.
END RATIONALE
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Get it at:
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/fhs-2.1-pre-02.tar.gz
Dan
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