> I was wondering, I setup pine 4.5 and it tells me I need 1777
> protection for my mail box, why is this? I set it like that but no go,
> 1777 seems to be wierd...rwx for all and plus t, any ideas?
1000 represents the "sticky bit," which (on directories) means that users
can't delete files they don't own. By default, if a directory's
permissions give people "write" access, it means they can add and delete
files (and do the latter regardless of whether or not they own the files).
The sticky bit, in contrast, sets things so that ordinary users can delete
only the files that they, in particular, own. Therefore, it's useful for
directories (like /tmp, /scratch, and /var/mail) that store files owned by
many users. In the "mail" directory, it's useful because mail programs
often want to create lockfiles there. Mode 1777 (as you point out, all
rwx plus "sticky") is typical for things like /tmp -- it means "let any
user add new files, but make sure they can only delete files they own."
I suspect pine wanted mode 1777 on the mail directory, not on your
mailbox, probably because it wanted to create either your mailbox or a
lockfile. That's just a guess, though.
Shawn