are you using /var/mail?

rob at freshmeat.net rob at freshmeat.net
Wed Jan 20 12:42:11 PST 1999


Sorry, that was more confuzing that I ment it to be, (and whops, didn't
trim the responce list ;-)

K, on the IRIX box I was refering to I should have mentioned 
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys            7 Feb 28  1995 var -> usr/var

So, when I said it is there, I ment it "officially" was suppse to be in
/var/mail 

as opposed to Linux and the DEC-UNIX box I looked at that have it in
/var/spool/mail (which it really is, not just a symbolic link) ;-)  Is
that clearer?

Sorry `bout the mixup.

rob at current.nu wrote:
> 
> Seems to be where it is on some systems I have looked at (other than
> Linux, but including even older versions of other OS's), but not all.
> 
> For example, even older versions of IRIX:
> 
> chem37 16% whoami
> current
> chem37 17% ls -l
> total 3
> drwxrwxr-x    2 root     mail         512 Dec  3 16:22 :saved
> -rw-rw----    1 current  mail         813 Jan 20 14:20 current
> chem37 18% pwd
> /usr/var/mail
> chem37 19% uname -a
> IRIX chem37 5.3 11091809 IP6 mips
> chem37 20%
> 
> But not DEC UNIX...
> 
> $ whoami
> current
> $ pwd
> /var/spool/mail
> $ ls -l current
> -rw-------   1 current  daemon         0 Jan 20 07:41 current
> $ uname -a
> OSF1 plains V4.0 878 alpha
> $
> 
> and no, it's not a symbolic link here:
> $ pwd
> /var/spool
> $ ls -l
> total 304
> drwxr-xr-x   4 root     system      8192 Dec 29 09:43 cron/
> drwxrwxr-x   2 uucp     uucp        8192 Dec 29 18:14 locks/
> drwxr-xr-x   2 root     system      8192 Dec 29  1997 lpd/
> -rw-r--r--   1 root     system         6 Jan  4 15:44 lpd.lock
> drwxrwxrwt   5 root     mail      237568 Jan 20 14:30 mail/
> drwxr-xr-x   2 root     system      8192 Jan 20 14:30 mqueue/
> drwxr-xr-x   2 daemon   system      8192 Jan 18 00:30 popbulls/
> drwxr-xr-x 104 root     system      8192 Jan  4 15:44 printers/
> drwxrwxr-x  10 uucp     uucp        8192 Dec 29 10:06 uucp/
> drwxrwxrwx   2 uucp     uucp        8192 Dec 29  1997 uucppublic/
> $
> 
> I do believe it's not a completely universial standard yet, at least not
> in practice.... But that doesn't mean it should be... (also don't expect
> me to know what I am talking about, just sharing observations...)

-- 
"Robert W. Current" <rob at current.nu> - email
http://www.current.nu                - personal web site
"Hey mister, turn it on, turn it up, and turn me loose." - Dwight Yoakam



More information about the lsb-discuss mailing list