| The FHS standard specifies /var/mail as the mail spool, but it also says |
| /var/mail may be a symbolic link to another directory, and there is no |
| requirement to physically move the mail spool to this location. |
| |
| Therefore, no package will move files around from one location to another |
| on upgrades, and /var/mail will be the real directory only in newly |
| installed systems. |
| |
| Since /var/spool/mail has been in use for several years now, we need |
| also to provide backwards compatibility for some time yet. |
| |
| So, to summarize: |
| |
| * New systems (Debian 2.2 or later) will have /var/mail as a real |
| directory and /var/spool/mail as a symlink to it. |
| |
| * Upgraded systems will have /var/spool/mail as the real directory |
| and /var/mail as a symlink to it. |
| |
| |
| People upgrading from previous releases who prefer the new physical |
| location /var/mail over the old one may do the required changes in their |
| systems if they do it with extreme care and know what they are doing. The |
| packages in charge of ensuring that /var/mail exists (currently, libc6 and |
| base-files) will not touch it at all if it already exists as a directory |
| or a symlink. |
| |
| |
| Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org> |
