Bug 4784

Summary:	login sometimes reports that you have mail when you really don't.
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	forsytad
Component:	imap	Assignee:	David Lawrence <dkl>
Status:	CLOSED NEXTRELEASE	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	6.0
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	1999-08-30 20:52:30 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description forsytad 1999-08-30 14:49:37 UTC

I think this is a feature and not a bug as far as imap folks
are concerned, but bugzilla made me choose a component, and
one for login didn't exist.

A feature was added to the new pine, imapd, ipop2d, and
ipop3d daemons (which were included with RedHat 6.0) that
keeps track of some information that they need in a bogus
email message in the users inbox.  These three programs know
about this message and how to identify its existance so they
don't ever show it to the user.

Login as it currently exists, does not know about this
behavior.  When a user loggs in, it check to see if the size
of their mailbox is > 0.  If it is, it declares to them,
"You have mail."....well, this is not necessesarily true, as
it might just be this bogus message from pine, imapd,
ipop3d, or ipop2d sitting in that inbox.

I would suggest that either login should be made smart
enough to recognize these messages and not count that as the
user having mail, or the feature should be disabled
completly in login, and it shouldn't try to report whether
or not a user has mail when they log in.

Comment 1 Preston Brown 1999-08-30 20:52:59 UTC

changed in util-linux-2.9w-23 and later (will available in 6.1).

Comment 2 Jonathan Kamens 2000-01-25 15:57:59 UTC

This does not appear to be fixed in 6.1:

jik:~!52> rpm -q -f /bin/login
util-linux-2.10c-3
jik:~!53> telnet localhost
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.localdomain.
Escape character is '^]'.

Red Hat Linux release 6.1 (Cartman)
Kernel 2.2.14 on an i686
login: jik
Password:
Last login: Mon Jan 24 23:23:50 on tty1
You have mail.
jik:~!1> frm
Mail System Internal Data  DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA
jik:~!2>

Note the "You have mail." line, even though the only message in my mailbox is
the IMAP book-keeping message.