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From: zook@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov (Craig A. Zook  283-4206)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Why does / change size with mail?
Message-ID: <1991May6.084839@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>
Date: 6 May 91 13:48:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: sweetpea.1991May6.084839
References: <26787@adm.brl.mil>
Sender: news@aio.jsc.nasa.gov (USENET News System)
Reply-To: zook@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov (Craig A. Zook  283-4206)
Organization: nasa-jsc
Lines: 29

In article <26787@adm.brl.mil>, tpm-sprl!tpm@uunet.uu.net (Terence P.
Ma) writes:
|> 
|> However, my mailbox is in /usr/spool/mail which is in "/usr", a
separately
|> mounted partition (and thus shouldn't affect "/").  I thought that
maybe it
|> was because when I was using mailtool (SunOS4.1.1; SS1+; OpenWindows)
a file
|> containing the full mailbox was being kept in "/tmp" which uses up
"/"
|> space, but there is no use of "/tmp" at the time.
|> 
|> Could someone please explain this phenomenon to me?
|> 

I think you will find that /usr/spool is a symbolic link to /var/spool
(i.e. spool -> ../var/spool).
As a result your mail is actually in your root partition where /var is
located.  I had problems with my mail and print spools flooding my root
partition and crashing my machine that I made a separate partition for
/var (I used the d partition).  The only problem with this is that you
need to remember to "mount /var" whenever you boot up in single user.

--
Craig Zook   -   zook@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov
Systems Engineeering and Administration
McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Corp. - Engineering Services Division
(713) 283-4206