[tpop3d-discuss] Tpop3d over NFS with Maildir: New mail files not immeditately seen?

[Rich, WhidbeyNet NOC]

Hi all,

We're testing Tpop3d 1.4.2 on a Solaris 8 machine, with standard
Maildirs, over NFS, using PAM for authentication. It works great so far,
except one problem.

When new mail arrives in "Maildir/new", either from Qmail, Exim or by
manually creating a file, it takes 3 minutes for Tpop3d to recognized
it. If you connect to Tpop3d within 3 minutes since the file was
created, it reports "You have no messages at all", or, shows however
many messages you had before the new mail arrived. Debug just shows:

maildir_new: scanned maildir /var/mail/username/Maildir (0 messages) in
0.003s

Once mail is detected, if you delete a message or two, and immediately
reconnect.. Tpop3d properly sees that the messages have been removed,
and the remaining messages are still there. So, it's only a problem with
seeing brand new messages, not saved mail.

This problem does not happen if we use a local home directory for mail,
instead of NFS. New messages can be seen and retrieved immediately after
they're put into the Maildir.

The problem also does not happen with qmail-pop3d in the same scenario
(Solaris with Maildirs over NFS, using Qmail and Exim MTAs).

This issue happens no matter what locking mechanism is enabled/disabled
in Tpop3d. Tpop doesn't try to lock Maildirs does it?

Does Tpop3d maintain some kind of cache of files? What makes NFS special
to Tpop3d? We do not have root permissions enabled over NFS, but
everything works fine, there's just a 3 minute delay before Tpop3d can
see the new files.

Help very appreciated! We want to stick with Tpop3d,

Rich
richs@whidbey.net