Re: lynx-dev metamail: Can't open temporary file

[Klaus Weide]

On Sun, 8 Aug 1999, T.E.Dickey wrote:
> > On Sun, 8 Aug 1999 address@hidden wrote: 
> > > Install Linux Mandrake 6.0 or RedHat 6.0 
> > >  
> > > log in 
> > >  
> > > type "lynx" hit return 
> > >  
> > > get "metamail: Can't open temporary file!" 
> >  
> > See <http://home.knUUt.de/tom.be/venus.html#Lynx>. 
> 
> So that says (in effect) that someone forgot to make $HOME/tmp to
> accommodate Mandrake.  

Or rather that Mandrake changed the default, but forgot to do something
so that it works out of the box or to tell the users.  (Or they tell the
users but in a place where users don't look.)  They could have customized
the error message, at least.

> (iirc, our policy on that is that Lynx doesn't make
> the temp-directory, but simply ensures that its permissions are
> appropriately restricted).

Yes, lynx never creates the directory, and never has as far as I know.
Permission checking is your field...

Btw., lynx *can* run without a valid temp directory - it just won't be
able to do anything that requires temp files, but basic browsing of
normal documents works fine.  It's only some mailcap tests that make
lynx exit when a temp file could not be created, and whether that gets
triggered depends on the mailcap files' contents.

    Klaus