Nick Hilliard (nick@iol.ie) said, on [990929 13:54]:
If you need to have text-based NFS-mounted client mailboxes, the only reliable option is to use a mailbox format which doesn't require locking, such as Maildir.
Amen. The only thing I've ever seen that didn't immediately give me the willies is:
Just for reference, I was lead author of that paper.
Running mail over NFS is doable if you're really, really careful. You will definitely want to replace the rpc.lockd locking mechanism with something better. This means modifying every program anyone uses to touch the mailbox (have to do that if you go with maildir as well).
If I understand your system and requirements, which is in doubt, I don't think this is a solution I would recommend for your situation.
Hope this helps.