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From: ralf@ptavv.ka.sub.org (Ralf Wenk)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: gak! yet another idiot beginner asking stupid stuff!
Message-ID: <1991May11.131955.05787@ptavv.ka.sub.org>
Date: 11 May 91 13:19:55 GMT
References: <9852@star.cs.vu.nl>
Lines: 39

In article <9852@star.cs.vu.nl> gpvos@cs.vu.nl (Gerben 'P' Vos) writes:
> jhensley@isis.cs.du.edu (John 'Hawg' Hensley) writes:
> 
>>2) mail doesn't seem to work unless /usr/spool/mail and all the mailboxes
>>   are world-writable. If I install uucp and use an alternate mailer, 
>>   can I avoid this? It's not a big deal, 'cause only friends are using
>>   the system, and they're not likely to delete each other's mailboxes, 
>>   but it's the principle of the thing.
> 
> Maybe you can apply the sticky directories patch and make /usr/spool/mail
> sticky, so anyone can write and create files, but only the owner of a file
> (and root) can remove it.
> Would this work? Is this The Right Thing to do?
> Any other directories that would be a candidate for becoming sticky, apart
> from this one and /tmp?

If you use wmail Fred van Kempen's wmail you do not need this.
Wmail is installed as:

-rwsr-xr-x  5 root     system      42282 May  1 18:12 /usr/bin/mail
 
/usr/spool/mail has the following owner and rights:

drwxrwxr-x  2 daemon   daemon        144 May 11 13:41 mail

and the mailboxes created by wmail looked like

-rw-------  1 postmast user           16 Sep 15  1990 postmaster
-rw-------  1 ralf     user        29012 May 11 13:41 ralf
-rw-------  1 root     root            0 May  1 18:13 root
-rw-------  1 uucp     uucp           16 Sep 15  1990 uucp

So if you do not allow a login as daemon noone except root can remove
a mailbox. The current version of wmail is in the plains archive.


-- 
-- 
Ralf Wenk -- ralf@ptavv.ka.sub.org