diff options
Diffstat (limited to '')
| -rw-r--r-- | debian/README.FHS | 29 |
1 files changed, 29 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/debian/README.FHS b/debian/README.FHS new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6fdea01 --- /dev/null +++ b/debian/README.FHS @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +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> |