Author: Kai Henningsen Date: To: exim-users Subject: Re: [Exim] Problems with writing to spool
mbaker@??? (Mark Baker) wrote on 10.08.00 in <20000810205123.A1448@???>:
> On Wed, Aug 09, 2000 at 08:36:57PM +0100, Philip Hazel wrote:
>
> > > Well, given that (on Debian at least) one is (by default)
> > > /var/spool/exim/ and the other is /var/spool/mail/, I think of the two
> > > as "Exim spool" and "mail spool".
> >
> > Aarrgghh!! I didn't realise Debian (ab)used the word "spool" like that,
> > though I have heard people talk of "the mail spool".
>
> I don't think they abuse the word, just the directory name, if you see what
> I mean.
>
> /var/spool/mail is traditional in quite a few versions of unix, including
> all early linux systems, and so debian started off using it. The FHS (linux
> file hierarchy standard) specifies /var/mail, but debian haven't changed to
> that because of the difficulty of migrating existing systems.
Actually, ISTR that quite a number of distribution people were upset about
that particular change idea. That's why the FHS explicitely allows
/var/mail to be a symlink.
