🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Feb6.233621.16164@nntp-server.caltech.edu> allen@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Scott R. Allen) writes:
>
>Sun workstation --SunOS version 4.1
>
>1.  Root sends mail to user1.
>2.  User1 logs in and gets the 'you have new mail' message.
>3.  User1 logs out.
>4.  User1 logs in again and gets the same 'you have new mail' message.
>5.  User1 logs out.
>6.  Root executes the command 'cat /var/spool/mail/user1' and the
>    all of the mail in user1's folder scrolls on the screen, the
>    message that root sent being the last.
>7.  User1 logs in again and this time gets the message 'you
>    have mail' rather than 'you have new mail'.

 I bet you have an NFS mounted mail spool directory.

 What happens is that the shell (or is it 'login') compares the last modified
and last accessed dates of your mailbox.  If modified since the last access
it reports the 'new mail' message.

 The mail command, on saving your mailbox, is careful to ensure that the
last accessed date is updated after the save, so that the mailbox does not
appear to have new mail.  But something happens between the saving on your
host and the actual saving on the server host which owns the real spool
directory.  I have seen various explanations such as clocks not completely
synchronized between the two.  I have not yet seen a fully convincing
explanation.

-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940