[comp.sys.apollo] Q: ELM protection error !

nomura@meap.uta.edu (Seiichi Nomura) (05/22/91)

Hello, I have a question about ELM.

When a user tried to use ELM, he got the following
message:

APOLLO//msd/user/lawrence %elm
Can't create lock file! Need write permission in "/usr/spool/mail/".

I could not find anything wrong in his file or his spool files.
Any help/suggestion is greatly appreciated. We are running SR10.3.
Thanks.
--
  -------------------------------------------------
  Seiichi Nomura ($@LnB<Lw0l(J)
  Mechanical Engineering Department  nomura@meap.uta.edu
  University of Texas at Arlington   b460nom@utarlg.bitnet
  Arlington, Texas 76019-0023        +1 817 273-2012 (press 2 for fax)

lau@desci.wharton.upenn.edu (Yan K. Lau) (05/22/91)

In article <NOMURA.91May21154549@meap.uta.edu> nomura@meap.uta.edu (Seiichi Nomura) writes:
>Hello, I have a question about ELM.
>
>When a user tried to use ELM, he got the following
>message:
>
>APOLLO//msd/user/lawrence %elm
>Can't create lock file! Need write permission in "/usr/spool/mail/".
>
I've installed elm on our Apollos.  What I found was that elm doesn't
work with the Apollo extended acls.  This is true for both /usr/spool/mail
and folders in the users directory.  Sometimes, elm can create files but can't
change their protection or access them again.

I removed the extended acls and installed BSD style acls on /usr/spool/mail.
Although the Apollo acls are much nicer, I've been moving toward installing
BSD only acls on user directories because software such as elm needs them
and because users are more familiar with them.

Aside: When we had Apollo extended acls installed on /usr/spool/mail, new
users who got mail for the first time would not be able to delete messages.
That is, their /usr/spool/mail/username was read-only for them.  I had to
manually add them as -owner.  Have other people encountered this?  Since
the /usr/spool/mail/username file never went away (even with 0 messages),
I just had to do this once.  Now with BSD acls, mail creates them correctly
and removes them (maybe elm does this?) when there are no messages.

There is a elm newsgroup, comp.mail.elm which might be helpful.


Yan.
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