Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!amdcad!pepsi.amd.com!indra
From: indra@pepsi.amd.com (Indra Singhal)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: File locking & trashed mailboxes/folders
Message-ID: <29890@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 13 Apr 90 21:09:21 GMT
Sender: news@amdcad.AMD.COM
Reply-To: indra@pepsi.amd.com (Indra Singhal)
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 26

I have an environment that has a bunch of diskless workstations NFS
mounting /var/spool/mail from a mail hub. It is therefore possible for
a user to invoke elm both on his w/s and on the mail hub. While the
consequences of such actions is known to all users, it would be nice if
it was possible to prevent this from happening.

One suggestion was to keep the temp file in the user's home directory
instead of /tmp... but that has its shortcomings too.

On a similar subject, when using elm to browse folders [elm -f foo] it
is again possible to have multiple invocations of elm for the same
folder.  Does the community feel that locking folders is a good idea or
should we let folks who err suffer?

Finally, is the locking mechanism described somewhere? We have an
office automation application, Alis [from Applix, Inc.] that has the
ability to grab what it thinks is Alis mail from
/usr/spool/mail/mymailbox. In doing so, it does not know to see if the
file is being accessed (maybe by elm).  Any pointer towards any doc. on
the locking philosophy of elm would be helpful. I'd pass the info to
Applix and hope they will fix Alis.

Thanks much!!
iNDRA | indra@amdcad.AMD.COM (Indra Singhal) (408) 749-5445
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