If /var/mail is allowed to be a symlink, it may be possible to ease the transition with clever post-install scripts.
Policy could be written that says no mail package shall actually include the /var/mail, but insead make it during install: a symlink if /var/spool/mail exists, otherwise a real directory (as in first install of a compliant system). The actual move can then be done at leisure, instead of when the packages involved are upgraded. It would be nice if there was common code, perhaps in a separate package, that could perform this tricky procedure. My own setup is a worst-case, an 800MB spool on a separate partition thats not even /var/mail or even /var/spool/mail, just /mail. :-) It may be best just to have the packages warn to move it manually.... I'm CCing the Debian Policy list on this. "David" == David C Niemi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> workstation vendors who have the majority of the > market are Sun, >> HP, and IBM; DEC's Digital Unix is a minority. The latest >> versions of each of the major vendors' Unices (HP-UX 10.20, >> Solaris 2.6, and AIX 4.2) all use /var/mail. (As for your >> assertion > that HP-UX uses /usr/mail, look more closely. >> /usr/mail is a symlink > to /var/mail.) I think IRIX does as well, >> but I dont currently have a > login on an SGI to check. David> Not to mention *BSD. What we have here is Linux clinging to David> an ancient directory structure at variance with other major David> variants of Unix. Please stick with /var/mail, with a David> compatibility symlink. David> David> As for transitional concerns, this should apply to *new David> systems*. If you currently have a large system which uses David> /var/spool/mail, stop sendmail for a moment (if you are serious David> you have an MX backup anyway and you do it in the middle of the David> night noone will notice), copy over to /var/mail (or move if it David> is the same file system), move the old /var/spool/mail aside, David> make the symlink, and archive off or delete the old David> /var/spool/mail. If it is a truly huge site you might want to David> use individual symlinks as a transitional measure or announce David> an outage. Or even make a symlink at /var/mail to handle the David> transition until you are doing an upgrade anyway. David> David> THIS ISN'T THAT HARD! And currently we are at odds with David> everyone that counts. We should not be requiring app vendors David> to do #ifdef LINUX any more than we have to. --------------------- PGP E4 70 6E 59 80 6A F5 78 63 32 BC FB 7A 08 53 4C __ _ Debian GNU Johnie Ingram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> mm mm / /(_)_ __ _ ___ __ "netgod" irc.debian.org mm mm / / | | '_ \| | | \ \/ / m m m / /__| | | | | |_| |> < Yes, I'm Linus, and I am your God. mm mm \____/_|_| |_|\__,_/_/\_\ -- Linus, keynote address, Expo 98 GO BLUE -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
