SQL & PL/SQL :: Impact Of Create Directory Statement On Filesystem

I am attempting to read from the maillog of our server, but I wish to make as few changes as possible for fear of blocking other systems access to the file.

I was initially going to call create directory maillogs as '/var/log/maillog' and then drop directory maillogs; when I was done but I found my user does not have "create any directory" permissions.

Rather than compromise security of the existing database configuration, I thought I would permanently add the maillogs to the list of available data directories. Are there any implications to the filesystem if I do this, or should I be able to add this without consideration of affects.

Understand that I will only be opening the file for (R) READ TEXT access only.

Primarily I am concerned that Oracle (in the background) will keep a file pointer open or something of that nature that would block other programs from writing to the file even after I close the file pointer. I want to make as little impact as possible to the file system.