On 12-07-2010 22:51, Sam Varshavchik wrote: > Jakob Bohm writes: > >> When courier IMAP sees a directory with the "sticky bit" set, it >> currently blocks user login and logs the following cryptic message: >> >> "imapd: LOCKED, user=..." or "imapd-ssl: LOCKED, user=..." >> >> While removing the sticky bit from the affected directory is trivial >> (once the obtuse message has been decoded), this leaves open some >> questions: >> >> 1. WHY does courier-imapd do this? Is this a leftover from a historic >> use of the sticky bit in some historic UNIX version? Does it emulate >> similar behaviour in pine or uw-imap? Is there a reason at all? > > It is historical behavior. Qmail's POP3 server did this, UW-IMAP > might've done this too, I don't recall. > > This is a simple mechanism to lock out access to an individual mail > account, for administrative reasons. > A somewhat obscure use of that bit, I would say.
>> >> 2. Why isn't the log message more clear about the cause of failure, >> the current message virtually guarantees that the sysadmin will need >> to do slow research just to figure out what is wrong. >> >> A better message might be: >> "imapd: LOCKED (/some/path has sticky bit set), user=..." >> (with /some/path being the actual directory whose sticky bit stopped >> imapd this time). > > Why does the sysadmin need to figure out anything? The sticky bit > doesn't appear by itself, out of thin air. The only way it can come into > existence would be if the sysadmin sets it manually, so the sysadmin is > already aware of it. > > Because on some current systems, the sticky bit on directories actually forms part of the file system permissions for that directory. Specifically, some Linux file systems (including ext2 and ext3), take it to mean "Permission to write to this directory does not imply permission to delete directory entries" . Thus the sysadmin may be setting the sticky bit on directories as part of a larger filesystem cleanup and may not realize that of all the bits changed, it is the sticky bit on directories that makes courier barf. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Sprint What will you do first with EVO, the first 4G phone? Visit sprint.com/first -- http://p.sf.net/sfu/sprint-com-first _______________________________________________ Courier-imap mailing list Courier-imap@lists.sourceforge.net Unsubscribe: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/courier-imap
