On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 12:08:03PM -0700, nate wrote: > Anne Wilson wrote: > > I did an update yesterday evening, and didn't spot that it had changed > > permissions on my .procmailrc. Consequently no mail came in after that. > > I've been out most of today, so just got it fixed, but what will have > > happened to the mail for the missing period? Maillog just shows that > > messages have been passed to procmail. Procmail won't run if the perms are > > wrong, so where do the messages go? > > $HOME/dead.letter ? A _sane_ delivery agent would definately return a temporary error (4xx) either to it's own internal queue, or return the error to the connecting MTA. The mail would in that case survive for a queueing period which is usually 5 to 7 days. But, when it comes to procmail, it might depend on your invocation: PROCMAIL(1) On general failure procmail will return EX_CANTCREAT, unless option -t is specified, in which case it will return EX_TEMPFAIL. Are you using sendmail or some other mda? Investigating sendmail source you'll find: ./sendmail/sysexits.h: * EX_CANTCREAT -- A (user specified) output file cannot be * created. * EX_TEMPFAIL -- temporary failure, indicating something that * is not really an error. In sendmail, this means * that a mailer (e.g.) could not create a connection, * and the request should be reattempted later. ./sendmail/deliver.c: case EX_NOINPUT: case EX_CANTCREAT: case EX_NOPERM: status = "5.3.0"; break; Unfortunately, for you, if -t was left out, it would mean a 5xx error code - permanent error - and a /dev/null of your email. -- Mikael