On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 06:52:46 +1000, Giles Lean <giles@nemeton.com.au>
wrote:
> 
> > AIUI, mail.local(8) moves mail from the spool to the user's mailbox. 
> > What I don't understand is whether it's invoked by the MTA or imapd.
> 
> MTA.
...
> > Obviously, I can't invoke "mail.local" to incorporate from the spool. 
> > 
> 
> mail.local is used to deliver mail into /var/mail/username.  Your use
> of the term "spool" is a litte confusing: each MTA will have its own
> queue and /var/mail is sometimes called the mail spool.  On some
> systems it used to be /usr/spool/mail or /var/spool/mail. :-)

Sorry to confuse.  I think I misunderstood something, got my layers
confused.  

I was thinking of my "mailbox" as my mail store: mbox, mh, maildir.  I
thought of /var/mail/username as my spool.  (My MUA, Sylpheed, has a
feature called "incorporate from spool" that reads /var/mail/username and
plucks new messages into the mh store.  Is there a more accurate term?)  I
can see that from the MTA's perspective, /var/mail/username is the
mailbox, the endpoint.  Where you stand depends on where you sit.  ;-)

I see now that mail.local moves messages from the MTA's queue (i.e. "the
spool") to /var/mail/username, a mailbox.  It's the MUA's job to move it
from there to the store.  

That in mind, I understand why "MTA" above answers the question I asked. 
Even if it wasn't the question I meant to ask.  :-/   

For the record, everything's working.  imap-wu will read
/var/mail/username and update a file named "mbox":

>> The mbox driver
>> implements the behavior of automatically moving new mail from the
>> spool directory to the "mbox" file on the user's home directory, if
>> and *only* if the "mbox" exists and is in mailbox format.  

IOW, it looks like imap-wu can behave like an MUA.  Which makes sense,
too.  

Thanks for the help and the education.  

--jkl