On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 09:43:42PM -0400, Steve Revilak wrote: > >Subject: Re: "Couldn't lock /var/mail/russ?<wbr/>" message when trying to > >access > > There are several locking stratgies that can be used in a mail spool > directory. A common one is "dotlock", where FILE.lock is used as an > advisory lock on FILE. (The manpage for mutt_dotlock(1) describes the > general process.) > > I was curious as to whether find would show a `/var/mail/russ.lock'. > If that file existed, then you may have been able to resolve the > "Couldn't lock" issue by removing `russ.lock'. However, your find > output indicates that a russ.lock wasn't the problem. > > >I was unable to resolve this, so i ended up recompiling mutt, and so far > >everything seems fine. > > On my system, mutt_dotlock is installed setgid mail; the setgid bit > allows mutt_dotlock to create a file in /var/mail, despite the fact > that I, an ordinary user, cannot create a new file in that directory. > It's possible that your copy of mutt_dotlock lost its setgid bit, and > recompiling/reinstalling restored the setgid bit. > > But hey, as long as it's working now :)
Thanks for your help! I thought this problem was strange, and after doing some researach, i too was looking for a .lock file, but never found one. (I wasn't sure i could remember all the parts that i compiled together for mutt, so that kind of made doing the recompile a last resort. I guess the lesson here is to quit mutt and not just shut the terminal down. Thanks again for your help! Russ > > Steve >
