can't read forwarded email from workstation; need to go to server

[Mark Vollmers]

Hi, all. got a question. I went ahead and had all the root email forwarded to my user account on unix (used an alias following a recent post), so I don't have to telnet to the server each morning and check root email. however, the mail didn't show up in my elm account (on ws) until I telneted to the server and logged in as myself. I know root has email on my workstation and a seperate account on the server, but shouldn't my email (since my home dir in on /home, which is on the server and mounted on the ws) be the same? if not, is there a way to link or combine the two? I normally stay logged onto my ws at night and just lock the screen; does it maybe just need a login? Thanks, as always!

Mark

[S.K. Chan]

My guess is your mailbox is sitting in /var/mail instead of you home directory, which means you can only read the email forwarded to you by the server root account if you log in to the server. What you need to do is when you define the mail aliases tell it to forward to username@myworkstation.com so that the mail will be physically send to "myworkstation"'s /var/mail.
Just a thought ..

[Mark Vollmers]

looking into it, this is indeed the case. on the server, root and my mail to to /var/mail, and the same on the workstation. is there a way to have mail for everyone go to ~/Mail (including root email) instead? I looked in the sendmail.cf file, but didn't see anything. Thanks.

Mark

[S.K. Chan]

You can do this on the server .. (make sure you don't have elm or any mail program running when you do this)..
Assuming your home directory is in /users/markv.

# cd /var/mail
# mv markv /users/markv/Mail
# ln -s /users/markv/Mail/markv markv

The only caveat with this is you have to create a symbolic link in /var/mail on the client as well.
I do not know of any other way that you can have the mail not delivered to /var/mail.

[Mark Vollmers]

alright- I'll give it a shot. Thanks!

Mark

[Mark Vollmers]

well, that didn't quite work out. I think I got everything back to where it was. I had put in /var/mail a link from root to /Mail/root, and likewise for my account (vollmers). after I made the changes, I restarted sendmail. today, I had no mail at all. in mail.log, I see that there are a number of entries that say stat=Insufficient permission: Error 0 I see that it went and put the messages in dead.letter, and the headers there says that it was unable to attach to /var/mail/root (or /var/mail/vollmers). I don't know if that is becuase these are now links or what. any ideas?

Mark

[Bill Thorsteinson]

The commands given move your
mail spool to your inbox.

I suspect mail does not have
permissions to open the file.
You likely don't allow other
access somewhere along the
path to your home directory.
Other needs at lease execute
access on the directories.

/users
/users/markv

You could forward root's mail
from the server to your
workstation. However,
you should make sure that
it is being delivered.
You can do this by editting
the file /etc/aliases
and running the newaliases
command.

Postmaster should not be
forwarded off the server
although I have been known
to do so.

[Mark Vollmers]

I tried it again. the hookup seems to be the link. evidently, it wants the owner to be me, the group sys and the permissions 666, and I can't make a link like that. either that, or you just can't have a link there. something doesn't work. I don't know.

mark

[S.K. Chan · Accepted solution]

Hi Mark, I should have spot this early, my apology. The directory that physically "housed" the mailbox must have permission 775 (bin:mail) which is the same as /var/mail permission. In your why don't you try create a separate dir in your home dir, call it ~vollmers/mailbox and changed its permission to 755 (vollmers:mail) and that should take care of it.

[Mark Vollmers]

S.K.-

Thanks! that was the key. I kept thinking file as well as opposed to the housing directory.

Mark