Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!samsung!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-sdd!apollo!apollo.hp.com!kr
From: kr@apollo.HP.COM (Keith Alan Rodwell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Sharing /usr/spool/mail
Keywords: BSD,mail
Message-ID: <46dc6903.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 16 Nov 89 01:25:00 GMT
References: <46dc33bb.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> <2614@unisoft.UUCP>
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Reply-To: kr@apollo.HP.COM (Keith Alan Rodwell)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 35

In article <46dc33bb.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>, kr@apollo.HP.COM (Keith Alan
Rodwell) writes:
> In article <2614@unisoft.UUCP>, cander@unisoft.UUCP (Charles Anderson)
writes:
> > Real simple question: can I share /usr/spool/mail between a bunch of
> > machines on the Token Ring?  All machines are running SR 10.1 with BSD
> > ...
> 
> 	Yes, there are a few gotcha's that you will need to pay attention
> to.  First, if you are uning sys5 /bin/mail it is possible to trample a
> users mail file if several machines are writing to a given mail box at one
> time (have seen this when nightly scripts went off and mailed all the results
> at the same time to root).  If you are running sendmail, you will probably
> want to spend the effort to have all sendmail daemons point to just
one.  This
> way you can prohibit more than one sendmail from trampling.  If you have any
> other questions, go ahead and give the 800 number a call...
> 

	Please understand, by the way, that none of these options are
supported by Apollo/HP.  And I have just gotten a call from R&D suggesting
that this might have been misleading to state the problems.  I have also
been told that it is still possible to trample with only one writter sendmail
running.  This is due to the fact that mail may think it has read all of
the mail, and flush the mail spool file.  It is worth noting that this is
also a problem with NFS.  Not specific to the Apollo/HP platform, but rather
an atribute of the base assumpts of current UNIX mailers.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------
``This theory which is mine, is mine'' -- Ann Elk (Monty Python)
Keith Alan Rodwell
Apollo/HP Customer Support
(508)-256-6600 X8415