problem with mailbox locking

problem with mailbox locking

[Peter Münster]

Hello,

After running g (gnus-group-get-new-news) in my group buffer, I got a
~/.emacs-mail-crash-box file with just one "F" and in my /var/mail/peter
incoming spool file, there was a message, that began with "rom ...".

After that, gnus didn't work any more:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
error: Error, unknown mail format!
(Possibly corrupted buffer ` *nnmail incoming*'.)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I suppose, the reason for this incident, is wrong mail-locking!?

/var/mail/peter is written by postfix->procmail.

What could I do, to make sure, that such collisions don't happen?

TIA for any help!

-- 
           Peter

Re: problem with mailbox locking

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

pmlists@free.fr (Peter Münster) writes:

> After that, gnus didn't work any more:
> error: Error, unknown mail format!
> (Possibly corrupted buffer ` *nnmail incoming*'.)
> I suppose, the reason for this incident, is wrong mail-locking!?
>
> /var/mail/peter is written by postfix->procmail.
>
> What could I do, to make sure, that such collisions don't happen?

Gnus uses the "movemail" program to move mail from /var/mail to ~/.  It
has to be built with the correct mail locking switches in mind, I think.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

Re: problem with mailbox locking

[Peter Münster]

On Tue, Jul 19 2011, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:

> pmlists@free.fr (Peter Münster) writes:
>
>> After that, gnus didn't work any more:
>> error: Error, unknown mail format!
>> (Possibly corrupted buffer ` *nnmail incoming*'.)
>> I suppose, the reason for this incident, is wrong mail-locking!?
>>
>> /var/mail/peter is written by postfix->procmail.
>>
>> What could I do, to make sure, that such collisions don't happen?
>
> Gnus uses the "movemail" program to move mail from /var/mail to ~/.  It
> has to be built with the correct mail locking switches in mind, I think.

Yes. It's always built with "MAIL_USE_FLOCK = 1". Since I don't know how
to change that, and since procmail uses "lockfile", my solution is a
wrapper-script:

(setq mail-source-movemail-program "~/bin/my-movemail.sh")

~/bin/my-movemail.sh:
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
#!/bin/bash

MM=~/emacs/lib-src/movemail
LF="$1.lock"

lockfile "$LF"
$MM "$@"
rm -f "$LF"
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

-- 
           Peter