[clue-tech] mbox

[Angelo Bertolli]

Jason S. Friedman wrote:
> I'm running Ubuntu 7.1 with no non-standard packages.  I generally use 
> Thunderbird 2.0 as my mail client.
>
> At a command prompt the mail command returns nothing.
>
> jason at love ~ $ mail
> No mail for jason
>
> That's probably consistent with the contents of /var/spool/mail 
> (symlink to /var/mail)
>
> jason at love ~ $ ll /var/mail
> total 2304
> -rw-rw---- 1 arthur       mail  101697 2008-01-25 12:39 arthur
> -rw-rw---- 1 jason        mail       0 2008-01-25 18:08 jason
> -rw-rw---- 1 julia        mail 2089110 2008-01-25 16:53 julia
> -rw-rw---- 1 matchingmoms mail  150707 2008-01-25 15:57 matchingmoms
> -rw-rw---- 1 powerpull    mail       0 2008-01-25 15:02 powerpull
>
> Yet, my procmail log shows, for example:
>
> From amit at interbasecorp.com  Fri Jan 25 18:07:51 2008
>  Subject: Informatica Administrator
>   Folder: /home/jason/mail/Inbox    12683

Ok, so you're filtering your mail to /home/jason/mail/Inbox... that 
would mean it's not going to /var/spool/mail/jason, right?

>
> Anyway, using Thunderbird I _can_ see my new mail, even though my mail 
> file is empty and I've told Thunderbird to look there for mail:
>
> jason at love ~/mail $ ll Inbox
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 jason jason 21 2008-01-24 13:40 Inbox -> 
> /var/spool/mail/jason
>
> Now, there is an mbox file in my home directory, and it's growing, and 
> it contains the messages that Thunderbird is showing me:
>
> jason at love ~ $ ll mbox
> -rw------- 1 jason jason 2520800 2008-01-25 18:08 mbox
>
> So, why is my mail being directed to mbox, and why is Thunderbird able 
> to see it there?

Not sure... usually an email client does this:  puts read/opened mail 
into mbox.




Angelo