Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!gatech!bbn!oberon!polyslo!steve
From: steve@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Steve DeJarnett)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: NFS mail
Message-ID: <8853@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 3 Mar 89 20:14:45 GMT
References: <17946@genrad.UUCP>
Reply-To: steve@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Steve DeJarnett)
Organization: Lab Rat Rumpus Room -- Cal Poly SLO
Lines: 26

In article <17946@genrad.UUCP> rob@genrad.com (Robert S. Wood) writes:
>Can I mount /usr/spool/mail everywhere and
>not transport it around?  Can I trick mail to thinking it is coming from
>the 'main' machine irregardless of where it is coming from?  Would I
>still use sendmail, or should /bin/mail be all I need with a special
>sendmail.cf on the 'main' machine?

	You can't just mount /usr/spool/mail everywhere (well, you could, but 
it'd be dangerous).  The reason is as follows.  If machine A receives mail for
user X at the same time that machine B receives mail for user X, and both grab
/usr/spool/mail/X and try to write to it, you get the classic multiple-access
problem (i.e. only one of the messages makes it in -- the last one to write).
I think Sun sells an RPC product that allows you to do file locking across 
multiple machines, but I don't know if mail will respect this or not.

	The way I'd do it is have all clients forward mail to the server, and
let the server write the mail out.  Thus, tweak your sendmail.cf somewhat (I
think).  These are just suggestions, your mileage may vary.  Consult your 
local sendmail hacker for better info....

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