Bug 4465

Summary: mail -u doesn't find the correct mailbox file
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: fwx
Component: mailxAssignee: David Lawrence <dkl>
Status: CLOSED WORKSFORME QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.0   
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-08-10 19:00:39 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description fwx 1999-08-10 18:47:56 UTC 
After an su root, I run "/bin/mail -u root" to check for
any mail that has arrived for root.  It doesn't find any,
and reports "No mail for root".  However, I can see that
there is mail in root's mailbox
file, /var/spool/mail/root.  Furthermore,
running "/bin/mail -f /var/spool/mail/root" allows me to
access it.  The problem here is that "mail -u user" is
(according to the man page) supposed to be eqivalent
to "mail -f /var/spool/mail/user".  It obviously is not
working correctly.
Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 1999-08-10 19:00:59 UTC 
Your USER environment variable is not changed when you do "su root".
Do "su - root" instead.