[tpop3d-discuss] [freebsd@chef-ingenieur.de: Re: Problems with tpop3d 1.3.4 and mailbox mode]

Chris Lightfoot chris at ex-parrot.com
Sun, 9 Sep 2001 15:06:46 +0100


On Sun, Sep 09, 2001 at 02:38:09PM +0100, Chris Elsworth wrote:
> Just after some help with this guy who's having problems with the FreeBSD 
> port.. I thought the error he quotes was because it's not running as root, 
> but apparently not .. what might be causing it?

> ----- Forwarded message from "Thomas Krause, CI" <freebsd@chef-ingenieur.de> -----
> 
> From: "Thomas Krause, CI" <freebsd@chef-ingenieur.de>
> To: Chris Elsworth <chris@shagged.org>
> Subject: Re: Problems with tpop3d 1.3.4 and mailbox mode
> Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2001 14:24:57 +0200
> 
> At 11:22 09.09.2001 +0100, you wrote:
> >On Sun, Sep 09, 2001 at 11:22:54AM +0200, Thomas Krause, CI wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I've installed tpop3d from the ports. I'm using standard mailboxes in
> > > /var/mail. With tpop3d I'm unable to retrieve mails. In maillog I have:
> > >
> > > Sep  8 18:12:15 tom-test tpop3d[5993]: dotfile_lock(/var/mail/tom): 
> > unable to
> > > create hitching post: Permission denied
> > >
> > > I belive this is a problem with permission of /var/mail. It's working when
> > > setting /var/mail to 777, standard is 775.
> >
> >Are you running tpop3d as root, or in the group that has write access to
> >/var/mail ? It's trying to create a $user.lock file in /var/mail and failing
> >because it doesn't have permission to do so.
> 
> tpop3d is running as root and root has all permissions on /var/mail
> 
> # ps -jxc -U root | grep tpop3d
> root 39880     1 39879 1011c00    0 S     ??    0:00.02 tpop3d
> 
> # ls -ld /var/mail
> drwxrwxr-x  2 root  mail  512 Sep  8 18:25 /var/mail
> 
> (btw. ipop3d is working here, but I want replace it).

tpop3d never runs as root when accessing user mailspools.

In this situation, you would want either to make tpop3d
run as group mail (so that it can create files in
/var/mail), make /var/mail chmod 1777, or to switch off
dotfile locking.

-- 
Chris Lightfoot -- www.ex-parrot.com/~chris/
 ``I don't kill flies, but I like to mess with their minds.
   I hold them above globes.  They freak out and yell,
   `Whoa, I'm way too high'.''  (Bruce Baum)