are you using /var/mail?

H. Peter Anvin hpa at transmeta.com
Wed Jan 20 11:41:13 PST 1999


> There is speculation that /var/spool/mail has remained the "real"
> standard for Linux despite what FHS 2.0 says.
> 
> If you are a Linux developer/distribution/company/etc. currently using
> /var/mail (as specified in FHS 2.0) instead of /var/spool/mail, please
> let me know.  I think glibc 2.1 has made the change to _PATH_MAILDIR in
> paths.h, but that's all I know about.
> 
> If nobody is using it, we can consider changing it back.  If not, then
> we'll just specifically allow a symbolic link at /var/mail to point to
> the real spool directory (or something like that).
> 

I think changing it back would be a bad idea, because it breaks
compatibility with other systems, which we *can't* change.

However, requiring a link from /var/spool/mail is probably a good idea.

	-hpa



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