KMail - can I collect mail from machine on LAN?

[Timothy Murphy]

Brian Richardson wrote:

>> I hadn't really thought of using NFS,
>> but I'll look into it.
>> I guess I am slightly reluctant to use NFS over WiFi,
>> as I am not sure what will happen if the link breaks
>> (as it does occasionally).
>>
>> Also I suppose I would have to ensure that NFS did not try to run
>> if I was away from my desktop.
>> My recollection is that NFS hangs for a very long time
>> if it does not succeed?
> 
> Yes, that would be one of the caveats; NFS will hang indefinitely
> waiting for the server to be available. Running it over the WiFi should
> be as secure as the WiFi itself (you're not running it unencrypted, are
> you?) I'm not quite sure I understand the meaning of your
> second-to-last statement. The desktop will run an NFS server and will
> export /var/spool/mail. Your laptop will be an NFS client, and could be
> configured to use an automounter to ensure that network traffic is kept

What I meant was: at the moment I run uucp every 10 minutes to collect mail
(directly to my laptop) and when I run KMail it looks in /var/spool/mail
to see if any mail had arrived.
If I'm far away from my desktop uucp doesn't connect
but that doesn't cause any problems;
and then there is nothing in /var/spool/mail ,
but that again causes no problem.

If I used NFS as you suggest
I would presumably have to tell my laptop 
whether it could mount /var/spool/mail on my desktop.
If it tried to mount it automatically, and failed,
I assume the program would just hang.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland