What is this 'private' folder??

[arnie]

I have noticed that my G4 running 10.3 has a new folder sitting on the Mac HD named "private". I never noticed it before. AND, what made me catch it was noticing that my computer was running some activity at 3:15 AM. I do not have anything scheduled to be done, I quit Mail every night before leaving the office, and the Mac goes to sleep 1/2 hour after I leave.

I just did a Find for all activity in the last 24 hours, and at 3:15AM this folder is the only area active. Also, When I tried to drag the whole foldr to the trash, It would not, saying it was "owned by the 'root'.

Whats up here? Is this an innocent Apple procedure? or have I downloaded some spyware somewhere?

[arnie]

well, I spoke too soon. Many of you already understand this unix stuff - - I havent a clue, but apparently as I read in th efollowing link, this is all well an dgood.

But I dont understand why I never noticed such a prominent folder before??


http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...01020700163714