Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!syd
From: syd@DSI.COM (Syd Weinstein)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Problem using a shared mailbox in Elm
Message-ID: <1991Apr12.130237.4250@DSI.COM>
Date: 12 Apr 91 13:02:37 GMT
References: <4812@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Reply-To: syd@DSI.COM
Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc.  Huntingdon Valley, PA
Lines: 30

andy@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Andy Clews) writes:
>At my site, we have a "support" mailbox which is owned by a dummy user and
>which is group read/writeable by several named users on the system.  This
>allows any of those persons to read, act upon, and delete mail messages sent
>to "support".  With ordinary (UCB) mail, use of this mailbox works fine. 
>With UCB mail we have "set keep" in force so that the support mailbox never
>gets deleted when it is empty, thus preserving permissions etc. 

>To read this mailbox with Elm, I give the "c" command and specify
>/usr/spool/mail/support as the folder to change to. All works fine; i.e. I
>can read, save, delete messages etc., but when the time comes to quit, Elm
>gives the following two messages:

>      Problems restoring permissions of folder /usr/spool/mail/support!
>      Error EPERM trying to change file /usr/spool/mail/support access time.
These have to do with the way Elm handles copy out and back.  It actually
deletes and recreates the spool mail box if it can, and then changes
the permissions back (because it tries to do a mv of the tmp file
over top of the regular file).  In your case, the mv fails, and it
copies it back (which takes longer) so you see it work, but it also
reports the errors trying to restore the permissions (which already match
because it did a copy instead of a move.)

The symlink problem is the same, here it is able to do the unlink,
as you own the symlink directory and then can do the move back.
-- 
=====================================================================
Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP                   Elm Coordinator
Datacomp Systems, Inc.                          Voice: (215) 947-9900
syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd                        FAX:   (215) 938-0235