Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!rex!ames!pacbell!pbhyf!rob
From: rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: placement of lock file
Message-ID: <6817@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>
Date: 3 Feb 90 21:16:24 GMT
References: <11776@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Reply-To: rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo)
Distribution: na
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 18

David Becker writes:
+Only root has write permission in our /usr/spool/mail on some of the
+vaxen here.  On start up elm dies with the message 'Can't create lock file!'
+Can I configure elm to put it in /tmp?

No, that won't work. The lock file is not an ELM convention, but a convention
between all programs that write to files in your mail spool directory, and
the convention is to put the lock file in the mail spool directory. You
need to check to see about the mode of other programs on your system that
write to mail spool files: /bin/mail, mailx, etc. One arrangement is
that the directory has write permission for a particular group (e.g.
group "mail") and elm (and the other programs that write to mail spool
files) are setgid programs.
-- 
Rob Bernardo     (415) 827-4301 (residence) B3 f+ t- dv sv m+ r+ p
				seeking     B2-24 f+/f t-/t cv dv s++ m++ e r+
email until 3/1/90: ...![backbone]!pacbell!pbhyf!rob OR rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM
	resurrection some several months after that