How does Eudora work with a POP server?
Let’s consider the fictional Ada Byron, whose netid is adabyron and whose account is on tigger. • When Ada’s Eudora attaches to the POP server on tigger, it “puts a lock” on her email Inbox: /usr/mail/adabyron The lock is to keep the Inbox from being changed while the POP server is working with it. • The POP server then copies /usr/mail/adabyron to the file: /usr/mail/.adabyron.pop Both /usr/mail/adabyron and /usr/mail/.adabyron.pop are readable and writable directly by their owner, Ada Byron, although it’s generally not a good idea to write to them with anything besides an email program since their format is rather delicate. • After the POP server finishes copying the Inbox file, it erases the messages it moved to the .pop file, leaving the Inbox (/usr/mail/adabyron) empty. Then the POP server removes the file lock, opening Ada’s Inbox for new incoming email messages. Copying the file from one location on the server machine to another is fast, so making a copy of the file on the serve
