[PLUG] qpopper weirdness

[MaD dUCK <madduck@madduck.net>]

hey,
i am using qpopper for pop3 access. one of my users hasn't been
reading mail in two weeks, and now her mailbox is 16Mb. that's not a
lot, no. however, she uses microcrap software, which is not succeeding
at downloading whereas a direct POP3 interaction with the server
through netcat revealed that it was working. however, whenever a user
logs in through POP, the following happens:

- /var/spool/mail/myuser gets copied (!) to /var/spool/pop/myuser.pop
  even though it's the same partition.
  /var/spool/mail/myuser.lock exists for the length of this copying
  process. once /var/spool/pop/myuser.pop equals
  /var/spool/mail/myuser and the latter has been overwritten, the lock
  file is removed.
- /var/spool/mail/myuser then gets overwritten to produce a zero byte
  file.

when the POP session ends,

- /var/spool/pop/myuser.pop is copied back onto
  /var/spool/mail/myuser (appended) while myuser.lock exists.
- the lock file is removed when /var/spool/mail/myuser exists again at
  its full size (provided POP didn't delete mails).

with the 16Mb, the copying back and forth takes about 10 seconds each,
probably enough to make the microcrap shit choke. this is what i am
assuming - i have no access to the client computer as it's 4000 miles
away. but i am wondering why qpopper decides to cp/rm that file rather
than mv it... a security measure? doesn't want to get into my head...

any comments appreciated (and please CC to me).

martin;              (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
  \____ echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:"; net@madduck
-- 
"no, 'eureka' is greek for 'this bath is too hot.'"
                                                            -- dr. who


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