mail_cmds/comsat/comsat.8

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  34 .\"     from: @(#)comsat.8      8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
  35 .\"
  36 .Dd June 4, 1993
  37 .Dt COMSAT 8
  38 .Os BSD 4.2
  39 .Sh NAME
  40 .Nm comsat
  41 .Nd biff server
  42 .Sh SYNOPSIS
  43 .Nm
  44 .Op Fl l
  45 .Sh DESCRIPTION
  46 .Nm
  47 is the server process which receives reports of incoming mail
  48 and notifies users if they have requested this service.
  49 .Nm
  50 receives messages on a datagram port associated with the
  51 .Dq biff
  52 service
  53 specification (see
  54 .Xr services 5
  55 and
  56 .Xr inetd 8 ) .
  57 The one line messages are of the form:
  58 .Pp
  59 .Dl user@mailbox-offset
  60 .Pp
  61 If the
  62 .Em user
  63 specified is logged in to the system and the associated terminal has
  64 the owner execute bit turned on (by a
  65 .Dq Li biff y ) ,
  66 the
  67 .Em offset
  68 is used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file and
  69 the first 7 lines or 560 characters of the message are printed
  70 on the user's terminal.  Lines which appear to be part of
  71 the message header other than the
  72 .Dq From ,
  73 .Dq \&To ,
  74 .Dq Date ,
  75 or
  76 .Dq Subject
  77 lines are not included in the displayed message.
  78 .Sh OPTIONS
  79 The
  80 .Nm
  81 program supports this option:
  82 .Bl -tag -width 12345
  83 .It Fl l
  84 The
  85 .Fl l
  86 option turns on
  87 .Xr syslogd 8
  88 log messages.
  89 .El
  90 .Sh FILES
  91 .Bl -tag -width /var/run/utmpx -compact
  92 .It Pa /var/run/utmpx
  93 to find out who's logged on and on what terminals
  94 .El
  95 .Sh SEE ALSO
  96 .Xr biff 1 ,
  97 .Xr inetd 8 ,
  98 .Xr syslogd 8 .
  99 .Sh BUGS
 100 The message header filtering is prone to error.
 101 The density of the information presented is near the theoretical minimum.
 102 .Pp
 103 Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other
 104 machines than the one to which they are currently logged in.
 105 .Pp
 106 The notification should appear in a separate window so it
 107 does not mess up the screen.
 108 .Pp
 109 .Nm
 110 runs as root so that it can open the users maildrop.
 111 .Sh HISTORY
 112 The
 113 .Nm
 114 command appeared in
 115 .Bx 4.2 .