bugThe nmh Mail Handling System - Bugs: bug #4361, Provide locking between MH programs

 
 

bug #4361: Provide locking between MH programs

Submitted by:  Bill Wohler <wohler>
Submitted on:  Fri 18 Jul 2003 10:19:12 PM UTC  
 
Category: BugSeverity: 3 - Normal
Priority: 5 - NormalStatus: Fixed
Assigned to: NoneOpen/Closed: Closed

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Fri 29 Jun 2012 02:31:11 AM UTC, comment #2:

This was already fixed by commit 82a21b6f3cddf8ab048dcb02c080ea9797c73c5a waaaay back on Fri Sep 5 2003. You should use rcvstore with procmail. There are some very old web pages that say not to, but they likely predate the aforementioned fix.

The rcvstore man page still said to not use it if you use Unseen-Sequence, but I just removed that, commit b1c806a275fdc0ec755bcbb758395946231f5b3b.

Note that nmh programs don't lock the entire folder, but just what they need to lock, i.e., the context or sequences files, and just for as long as they need to. rcvstore creates a new message by first putting it in a temporary file, using link(3p) to create the new message, then unlinking the temporary file. That precludes creation of multiple messages with the same message number. It checks for success/failure and deals with it.

David Levine <levine>
Project Member
Fri 30 Jan 2004 09:53:58 PM UTC, comment #1:

With your suggested locking mechanism, if you "show" a message and leave it on for hours, you'll end up with tons of "rcvstore"s waiting on the lock?

Another related bug is that if you "show" a message and new messages arrive and are added into the unseen sequence, the "show" will remove the new messages from the unseen sequence when it exits.

Anonymous
Fri 18 Jul 2003 10:19:12 PM UTC, original submission:

I use rcvstore in my .procmailrc. Many folks think that this is a bad idea since procmail might call rcvstore at the same time you run an MH command manually which might result in the loss of messages. While I haven't had trouble with this, I'm probably living on borrowed time, especially when running long-lived commands like sortm.

It would be best if the MH commands locked the folder before proceeding.

Bill Wohler <wohler>
Project Member

 

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    Follow 3 latest changes.

    Date Changed By Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced By
    Fri 29 Jun 2012 02:31:11 AM UTClevineStatusNone=>Fixed
      Open/ClosedOpen=>Closed
    Mon 29 Dec 2008 10:32:13 PM UTCpm215CategoryNone=>Bug

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