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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!papergirl.highway1.com!chnws02.highway1.com!ndnws01.ne.highway1.com.!news From: Ted Buswell <tbuswell@balrog.ml.org> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: root's mail??? Date: 23 Jun 1997 22:02:05 -0400 Organization: nntp Needham Lines: 23 Message-ID: <874taoiwrm.fsf@balrog.ml.org> References: <5ok7j5$dc5@quail.swcp.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tbuswell.ne.highway1.com To: crs@quail.swcp.com X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:43378 crs@quail.swcp.com (Charlie Sorsby) writes: > > What must I do to read root's mail? I find that I can't do it with > sudo and I can't do it when I actually su to root--all I get is my > own mail. I must have something misconfigured but what? > My guess is that after getting uid=0, you've still got $USER set to your login name. By default, 'mail' looks at the file /var/mail/$USER Try: $ su -l root # mail Or: $ sudo sh -c "USER=root mail" A lot (most?) people find it easier to have mail addressed to root end up in the mailbox of a "real" account (either by .forward or aliases(5)). -Ted