Ofcourse. It is even spelled out in your original message: use a tempfile
and link(2). All better email software does it that way instead of
using O_EXCL because it's NFS safe.
>Is there a "better" alternative to using NFS servers for email storage? May-
>be coda or AFS?? How are others using Linux to implement distributed email
>servers?
Debian Linux has an entry in the policy manual about the locking protocol
used for mailboxes. It says that all MUAs and MTAs have to use NFS safe
dotlocking as the locking protocol. So if you use only Debian-packaged
email software (and/or make sure the stuff you compile yourself uses
the same locking protocol) you can use NFS-mounted mailboxes without any
problems, and in fact that is just what we are doing.
Mike.
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