#436079 procmail cannot write to /dev/std{out,err}

Package:
procmail
Source:
procmail
Description:
Versatile e-mail processor
Submitter:
martin f krafft
Date:
2013-10-15 20:15:08 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
#436079#3
Date:
2007-08-05 09:27:37 UTC
From:
To:
procmail: Assigning "LOGFILE=/dev/stderr"
procmail: Opening "/dev/stderr"
procmail: Error while writing to "/dev/stderr"

AFAICT, /dev/std{out,err} have normal, write-only file semantics.
procmail really should be able to deal with those, mainly for
debugging purposes.
#436079#8
Date:
2007-08-05 10:23:46 UTC
From:
To:
Last time I read the source code, files in /dev were treated specially
(probably for security reasons) and only /dev/null is really expected to work.

As procmail is not the typical program which is designed to work
on the terminal, it is not of great value to try to modify it at this time.

Please try VERBOSE=on, I think it should help on whatever you are trying to do.

Thanks.
#436079#11
Date:
2007-08-05 10:49:01 UTC
From:
To:
reopen 436079
tags 436079 wontfix
thanks

also sprach Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> [2007.08.05.1223 +0200]:

No, it does not. I am debugging a problem and set VERBOSE=on on the
command line, and I have

  LOGFILE=${LOGFILE:-/path/to/log}

in the procmailrc. The theory is that I can override it on the
command line. by saying

  procmail VERBOSE=yes LOGFILE=/dev/stderr < msg

if I need to see the verbose output of processing a particular
message without having to filter out the information from the common
log file.

Anyway, since this is undoudtedly a bug but you are not interested
in fixing it, I am marking this wontfix.
#436079#20
Date:
2007-08-06 08:51:27 UTC
From:
To:
severity 436079 wishlist
tags 436079 - wontfix
thanks

There seem to be legitimate reasons why /dev/stderr is not writeable.
Try

chmod 755 /usr/bin/procmail

to see the difference.

It's not that I'm not interested to fix this, but that this seems
to be a design flaw of the type that the author will never fix
and not important enough to fork the code.

If you send me a patch, I will consider keeping this report open.
Otherwise I will close the report.
#436079#31
Date:
2013-10-15 20:01:56 UTC
From:
To:
Procmail should be able to do this, but perhaps /dev/stderr doesn't
allow an O_APPEND?
#436079#34
Date:
2013-10-15 20:01:56 UTC
From:
To:
Procmail should be able to do this, but perhaps /dev/stderr doesn't
allow an O_APPEND?