[comp.unix.questions] elm 2.1 newmail cannot find username

david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp) (06/10/89)

Hi.  Most of our users are still using elm 2.1 PL1.  After rebuilding
the kernel recently, certain of these users started getting the
following error: 

     Newmail: I can't get username!

I studied the code for newmail, and it first calls getlogin() and then
cuserid() if that fails.  Reading the man pages on these functions did
not give me a clue to the problem.  I ran diff on the output of
'setenv', 'set', and 'alias' on two of the accounts, on one of which the
command worked, the other on which it did not.  There was no obvious cause
of the problem.  I tried entering some of the variables and aliases by
hand to see if I could affect its behavior, with no success.  I studied
the /etc/passwd file to look for obvious differences in the setup of the
various accounts.  There may be a correlation between the magnitude of
the userid and the behavior, where it works on low userid's, but not
higher ones.

I do not know that the problem is related to the kernel configuration.
The only changes I made were supposed to affect the configuration of
certain serial ports.

The problem does not seem to be happening in elm 2.2 newmail.  We are
planning on upgrading most of our users soon, so maybe this problem
does not need to be solved.  I would still appreciate any help.  Thank
you,  -David-

-- 
Bitnet:   david@wubios.wustl                ^      Mr. David J. Camp
Internet: david%wubios@wucs1.wustl.edu    < * >    Box 8067, Biostatistics
uucp:     uunet!wucs1!wubios!david          v      660 South Euclid
Washington University (314) 36-23635               Saint Louis, MO 63110