3B1 error message "chmod failure of status file"

[Bob Ames]

In article <1225 at novavax.UUCP> rwright at novavax.UUCP (Ronald K. Wright) writes:
>When sending electronic mail using the 3B1 3.51 with HDB from the store and 
>the electronic mail package from AT&T I get an error window with "chmod 
>failure of status file".  I had this before on another machine an
>fidled it away.  I now have 8 machines, one with the problem, and
>cannot seem to get it fixed.
>
>The question is why and perhaps more importantly, how do I fix this.
>I cannot find an explanation in the documentation of 3.51 electronic
>mail or in what I have on HDB.

I assume you mean Electronic Mail 2.01, the latest version (according
to AT&T).

What I always do is:

# chmod 2711 `path email`
# chgrp mail `path email`
# chgrp mail /usr/lib/uucp/L.sys
# chmod g+r /usr/lib/uucp/L.sys

You may first need to create the group mail in the /etc/group file with
something like:

mail:NONE:6:root,uucp,nuucp,uucpadm,bob

One other, quite unrelated problem is that the L.sys file isn't 100%
compatible with Systems.  Email 2.01 is the only program that of which
I'm aware that exhibits the following problem.

If you've got complicated calling hours in your Systems file, then
Email 2.01 may not correctly parse it, and you'll end up with your
machine attempting to send mail out as 'rmail <some random part of L.sys>'
instead of 'rmail crash!bblue', for example.

The way I ended the symptoms was by de-linking L.sys and Systems, entering
dummy entries into L.sys - one per machine listed in Systems, but this
time with no complicated calling hours - and now Email 2.01 works pretty
well under HDB.

Bob

Bob Ames   The National Organization for  the Reform of Marijuana Laws, NORML 
"Pot is the world's best source of complete protein, alcohol fuel, and paper,
is the best fire de-erosion seed, and is america's largest cash crop." - USDA
bob at rush.cts.com or ncr-sd!rush!bob at nosc.mil  or rutgers!ucsd!ncr-sd!rush!bob
619-743-2546 "We each pay a fabulous price for our visions of paradise," Rush