popclient error

[Bob Toxen]

> From: UNIX Guru Dude <geof at denali.is.net>
> Subject: popclient error
> To: ale at cc.gatech.edu (ale)
> Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 01:09:10 -0500 (EST)

> Hey folks.  Been using popclient successfully for a while now.  Decided to
> call it from cron so that whenever my network was up, it'd go get my mail
> every 15 minutes.  It's still working fine, but I get the following errors
> from the cron job.  Anyone seen this before or have a clue?

> # BEGIN POPCLIENT OUTPUT

> popclient: clearbiffbit: fchmod: Operation not permitted
> mail1 POP3 Server (Version 1.004) ready.
> 1 messages in folder
> reading message 1..
> popclient: restorebiffbit: fchmod: Operation not permitted

> # END POPCLIENT OUTPUT
> -- 
> Until Later,
> Geoffrey Myers  geof at denali.is.net  eiger at ichange.com  gamyers at attmail.com
> 	http://www.ticllc.net/~geof

from popclient.c:


  function:      clearbiffbit
  description:   clear the owner execute bit on the controlling tty, so
                 that biff messages do not appear on the terminal with
                 the program output.

Clearly it's trying to do a fchmod (chmod on open file descriptor) to the
controlling TTY (login TTY) of which there ain't one for the cron daemon.

It's doing this to file descriptor 0, which is standard input.

This is harmless.  To get rid of it, try redirecting standard input from
some file you don't care about.  I.e.,

	touch /home/you/popjunk

	In crontab:
	popclient args < /home/you/popjunk

Bob Toxen
bob at cavu.com
http://www.mindspring.com/~cavu
Fly-By-Day Consulting
N79879
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