Home / ubuntu / Questions / 45445
In Process
Marky
Asked: 2011-05-27 19:29:34 +0800 CST

What is this executable /usr/bin/bsd-mailx?

  • 772

I'm getting a warning from this executable along with /usr/bin/mail. Apparently, the latter is a symbolic link to /etc/alternatives/mail which in turn is a symbolic link to the former. Is it part of the official Ubuntu package?

And what of these, anybody familiar?

[11:22:59]   Checking /dev for suspicious file types         [ Warning ]
[11:22:59] Warning: Suspicious file types found in /dev:
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-3395357841: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-209100905: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-1946326073: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-398300649: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-1247248499: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-919341478: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-3492730495: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-2387631939: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/mono.1905: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-2124227282: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-626708369: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-135679340: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-2263796104: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-2124025764: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-226259018: data
[11:22:59]          /dev/shm/pulse-shm-1077030235: data
[11:23:00]   Checking for hidden files and directories       [ Warning ]
[11:23:00] Warning: Hidden directory found: /etc/.java
[11:23:00] Warning: Hidden directory found: /dev/.udev
[11:23:00] Warning: Hidden directory found: /dev/.initramfs
security

2 Answers

  1. The symlinks are a normal part of the "alternatives" system used by the packaging system. In some cases, the same commands are provided by multiple packages. To handle this, each package installs their version of the command with a unique name and the common command name is symlinked to one of the versions. The symlinks can be updated using the update-alternatives utility.

    Now rather than directly symlinking from /usr/bin/mail to /usr/bin/bsd-mailx, the connection is made through a second symlink in /etc/alternatives. This allows different systems that share a common /usr but separate /etc to pick different alternatives.

    • 3

  2. You can answer this question yourself by checking with dpkg:

    dpkg -S /usr/bin/bsd-mailx
    • 3