removin mail locks without root access

[Karl oliver]

How do you remove a mail lock with out root access
mailx
Lock file exists!! Waiting ..........
mailx: can't lock /var/mail/ecert file after 10 tries
Please try to read your mail again in a few minutes

---------- 1 ecert mail 0 Dec 20 10:18 ecert.lock

The lock has been thre 2 days and now mail in the q for the user ecert

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

Login as the 'ecert' user and look for mail client processes like 'elm' and do a simple kill.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Dennis Handly]

>How do you remove a mail lock with out root access?

You basically can't. Where is your sysadmin?
What are the permissions for:
ll -d /var/mail

You might be able to do this if you are in the group "mail".

[Karl oliver]

there is nothing like elm or any mail stuff running under the user ecert running at all.

as to sys admin person - have been waiting 1 day for them to action

[Karl oliver]

permissions
drwxrwxr-x 2 bin mail 8192 Dec 23 09:21 /var/mail

[Dennis Handly]

>drwxrwxr-x 2 bin mail /var/mail

So only bin, group mail or root can remove the lock.

ecert could try looking at his mail by:
mailx -f /var/mail/ecert

But I wouldn't try modifying anything. I.e. exit with "x".

[Karl oliver]

i have read the mail using vi.
problem now mail is queing for user mailq shows this

[Benoy Daniel]

try to move the lock file and restart mail daemon.

[Dennis Handly]

>Benoy: try to move the lock file and restart mail daemon.

And these require root.

[Karl oliver]

Our sysadmin finally removed the lock after 2 days.
Our Unix admin is outsourced