has@ztivax.UUCP (Hans-Albert Schneider) (08/27/90)
Configuration: we are one of several APOLLO rings connected via ethernet, and administered centrally. One machine of the ring is at SR10.2, the others are at 9.7.3. sendmail runs at the master machines (one for SR9, one for SR10) in the computing centre as well as on our gateway (an other gateways; but I don't know whether their daemons get mail at all). As far as I know, we are the only ring having a /usr/spool/mail of our own (on the gateway), forwarding mail for users outside our ring to the master machine. I remember that SR9 sendmail has some problems with two or more sendmails using the same /usr/spool/mail directory (i.e., //machine2/bsd4.2/usr/spool/mail is a link to //machine1/bsd4.2/usr/spool/mail). I don't remember exactly what goes wrong, but I seem to remember that mail may be *returned* with a "cannot lock file" message instead of retrying delivery later. There may also be a problem with the lock() [maybe flock()] call when the file is on another machine. However, changing our machines (with one exception) to SR10.2, the consideration of having ONE /usr/spool/mail for all machines in ALL rings (as the computing centre would prefer) comes up again, so are there still any reasons to have separate mail directories at SR10? One of those mentioned above? Problems when the machine holding the mail directory is down? Others? Please email to one of my addresses given below, as I currently do not read news very regularly. If there is interest, I'll summarize. -- Hans-Albert Schneider ARPA: has@ztivax.siemens.com Siemens AG, ZFE IS INF 21 or: has%ztivax@siemens.siemens.com Otto-Hahn-Ring 6, Munich, W.Germany EUnet & UUCP: phone: (+49) 89 636 45 445 has@ztivax.UUCP