cander@unisoft.UUCP (Charles Anderson) (11/16/89)
Real simple question: can I share /usr/spool/mail between a bunch of
machines on the Token Ring? All machines are running SR 10.1 with BSD
4.3 installed. The mail system is sendmail. Can one machine be a mail
server and everyone else just have symbolic links from /usr/spool/mail
to //server/usr/spool/mail? This would allow everyone to read mail
from any machine in the network, right? Are there any caveats?
--
Charles.
{sun, amdahl, ucbvax, pyramid, uunet}!unisoft!canderkr@apollo.HP.COM (Keith Alan Rodwell) (11/16/89)
In article <2614@unisoft.UUCP>, cander@unisoft.UUCP (Charles Anderson) writes: > Real simple question: can I share /usr/spool/mail between a bunch of > machines on the Token Ring? All machines are running SR 10.1 with BSD > 4.3 installed. The mail system is sendmail. Can one machine be a mail > server and everyone else just have symbolic links from /usr/spool/mail > to //server/usr/spool/mail? This would allow everyone to read mail > from any machine in the network, right? Are there any caveats? Yes, there are a few gotcha's that you will need to pay attention to. First, if you are uning sys5 /bin/mail it is possible to trample a users mail file if several machines are writing to a given mail box at one time (have seen this when nightly scripts went off and mailed all the results at the same time to root). If you are running sendmail, you will probably want to spend the effort to have all sendmail daemons point to just one. This way you can prohibit more than one sendmail from trampling. If you have any other questions, go ahead and give the 800 number a call... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------- ``This theory which is mine, is mine'' -- Ann Elk (Monty Python) Keith Alan Rodwell Apollo/HP Customer Support (508)-256-6600 X8415
kr@apollo.HP.COM (Keith Alan Rodwell) (11/16/89)
In article <46dc33bb.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>, kr@apollo.HP.COM (Keith Alan Rodwell) writes: > In article <2614@unisoft.UUCP>, cander@unisoft.UUCP (Charles Anderson) writes: > > Real simple question: can I share /usr/spool/mail between a bunch of > > machines on the Token Ring? All machines are running SR 10.1 with BSD > > ... > > Yes, there are a few gotcha's that you will need to pay attention > to. First, if you are uning sys5 /bin/mail it is possible to trample a > users mail file if several machines are writing to a given mail box at one > time (have seen this when nightly scripts went off and mailed all the results > at the same time to root). If you are running sendmail, you will probably > want to spend the effort to have all sendmail daemons point to just one. This > way you can prohibit more than one sendmail from trampling. If you have any > other questions, go ahead and give the 800 number a call... > Please understand, by the way, that none of these options are supported by Apollo/HP. And I have just gotten a call from R&D suggesting that this might have been misleading to state the problems. I have also been told that it is still possible to trample with only one writter sendmail running. This is due to the fact that mail may think it has read all of the mail, and flush the mail spool file. It is worth noting that this is also a problem with NFS. Not specific to the Apollo/HP platform, but rather an atribute of the base assumpts of current UNIX mailers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------- ``This theory which is mine, is mine'' -- Ann Elk (Monty Python) Keith Alan Rodwell Apollo/HP Customer Support (508)-256-6600 X8415