Mail Security and Locking Problems

pn at amd70.UUCP pn at amd70.UUCP
Sat Jun 4 06:03:18 AEST 1983


I had the same problem with a non-existent mbox being created with the
SENDER as the owner. It turns out there is a variable called "keep"
which can be set in the /usr/lib/Mail.rc file which "causes Mail to truncate
your system mailbox instead of deleting it when it is empty". If you
do this and fix up everyone's mbox, the problem probably won't
reoccur very often.

At UCB, they tend to be very permissive about things (most mail is
readable by all) so I'm not surprised if security seems to be poorly
thought out or poorly documented. The "keep" variable IS described in
the 2.10 Mail manual, which I can send to interested people. (I have
Mail version 2.17, but the manual is only at 2.10.)

	Phil



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