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1 | .\" Copyright (c) 1980 The Regents of the University of California. |
2 | .\" All rights reserved. | |
f320d7c6 | 3 | .\" |
af359dea C |
4 | .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without |
5 | .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions | |
6 | .\" are met: | |
7 | .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright | |
8 | .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. | |
9 | .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright | |
10 | .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the | |
11 | .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. | |
12 | .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software | |
13 | .\" must display the following acknowledgement: | |
14 | .\" This product includes software developed by the University of | |
15 | .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. | |
16 | .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors | |
17 | .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software | |
18 | .\" without specific prior written permission. | |
ff262511 | 19 | .\" |
af359dea C |
20 | .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND |
21 | .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE | |
22 | .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE | |
23 | .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE | |
24 | .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL | |
25 | .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS | |
26 | .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) | |
27 | .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT | |
28 | .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY | |
29 | .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF | |
30 | .\" SUCH DAMAGE. | |
31 | .\" | |
32 | .\" @(#)mail2.nr 6.3 (Berkeley) 4/17/91 | |
f320d7c6 | 33 | .\" |
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34 | .bp |
35 | .sh 1 "Common usage" | |
36 | .pp | |
37 | The | |
38 | .i Mail | |
39 | command has two distinct usages, according to whether one | |
40 | wants to send or receive mail. Sending mail is simple: to send a | |
41 | message to a user whose login name is, say, | |
42 | \*(lqroot,\*(rq | |
43 | use the shell | |
44 | command: | |
45 | .(l | |
46 | % Mail root | |
47 | .)l | |
48 | then type your message. When you reach the end of the message, type | |
49 | an EOT (control\-d) at the beginning of a line, which will cause | |
50 | .i Mail | |
51 | to echo \*(lqEOT\*(rq and return you to the Shell. When the user you sent mail | |
52 | to next logs in, he will receive the message: | |
53 | .(l | |
54 | You have mail. | |
55 | .)l | |
56 | to alert him to the existence of your message. | |
57 | .pp | |
58 | If, while you are composing the message | |
59 | you decide that you do not wish to send it after all, you can | |
60 | abort the letter with a \s-2RUBOUT\s0. Typing a single \s-2RUBOUT\s0 | |
61 | causes | |
62 | .i Mail | |
63 | to print | |
64 | .(l | |
65 | (Interrupt -- one more to kill letter) | |
66 | .)l | |
67 | Typing a second | |
68 | \s-2RUBOUT\s0 causes | |
69 | .i Mail | |
70 | to save your partial letter on the file | |
71 | .q dead.letter | |
72 | in your home directory and abort the letter. | |
73 | Once you have | |
74 | sent mail to someone, there is no way to undo the act, so be | |
75 | careful. | |
76 | .pp | |
77 | The message your recipient reads will consist of the message you | |
78 | typed, preceded by a line telling who sent the message (your login name) | |
79 | and the date and time it | |
80 | was sent. | |
81 | .pp | |
82 | If you want to send the same message to several other people, you can list | |
83 | their login names on the command line. | |
84 | Thus, | |
85 | .(l | |
86 | % Mail sam bob john | |
87 | Tuition fees are due next Friday. Don't forget!! | |
88 | <Control\-d> | |
89 | EOT | |
90 | % | |
91 | .)l | |
92 | will send the reminder to sam, bob, and john. | |
93 | .pp | |
94 | If, when you log in, you see the message, | |
95 | .(l | |
96 | You have mail. | |
97 | .)l | |
98 | you can read the mail by typing simply: | |
99 | .(l | |
100 | ||
101 | .)l | |
102 | .i Mail | |
103 | will respond by typing its version number and date and then listing | |
104 | the messages you have waiting. Then it will type a prompt and await | |
105 | your command. The messages are assigned numbers starting with 1 \*- you | |
106 | refer to the messages with these numbers. | |
107 | .i Mail | |
8c80966d | 108 | keeps track of which messages are |
0d192f4a KD |
109 | .i new |
110 | (have been sent since you last read your mail) and | |
111 | .i read | |
112 | (have been read by you). New messages have an | |
113 | .b N | |
114 | next to them in the header listing and old, but unread messages have | |
115 | a | |
116 | .b U | |
117 | next to them. | |
118 | .i Mail | |
119 | keeps track of new/old and read/unread messages by putting a | |
120 | header field called | |
121 | .q Status | |
122 | into your messages. | |
123 | .pp | |
124 | To look at a specific message, use the | |
125 | .b type | |
126 | command, which may be abbreviated to simply | |
127 | .b t . | |
128 | For example, if you had the following messages: | |
129 | .(l | |
130 | N 1 root Wed Sep 21 09:21 "Tuition fees" | |
131 | N 2 sam Tue Sep 20 22:55 | |
132 | .)l | |
133 | you could examine the first message by giving the command: | |
134 | .(l | |
135 | type 1 | |
136 | .)l | |
137 | which might cause | |
138 | .i Mail | |
139 | to respond with, for example: | |
140 | .(l | |
141 | Message 1: | |
142 | From root Wed Sep 21 09:21:45 1978 | |
143 | Subject: Tuition fees | |
144 | Status: R | |
145 | ||
146 | Tuition fees are due next Wednesday. Don't forget!! | |
147 | ||
148 | .)l | |
149 | Many | |
150 | .i Mail | |
151 | commands that operate on messages take a message number as an | |
152 | argument like the | |
153 | .b type | |
154 | command. For these commands, there is a notion of a current | |
155 | message. When you enter the | |
156 | .i Mail | |
157 | program, the current message is initially the first one. Thus, | |
158 | you can often omit the message number and use, for example, | |
159 | .(l | |
160 | t | |
161 | .)l | |
162 | to type the current message. As a further shorthand, you can type a message | |
163 | by simply giving its message number. Hence, | |
164 | .(l | |
165 | 1 | |
166 | .)l | |
167 | would type the first message. | |
168 | .pp | |
169 | Frequently, it is useful to read the messages in your mailbox in order, | |
170 | one after another. You can read the next message in | |
171 | .i Mail | |
172 | by simply typing a newline. As a special case, you can type a newline | |
173 | as your first command to | |
174 | .i Mail | |
175 | to type the first message. | |
176 | .pp | |
177 | If, after typing a message, you wish to immediately send a reply, | |
178 | you can do so with the | |
179 | .b reply | |
180 | command. | |
181 | .b Reply , | |
182 | like | |
183 | .b type , | |
184 | takes a message number as an argument. | |
185 | .i Mail | |
186 | then begins a message addressed to the user who sent you the message. | |
187 | You may then type in your letter in reply, followed by a <control-d> | |
188 | at the beginning of a line, as before. | |
189 | .i Mail | |
190 | will type EOT, then type the ampersand prompt to indicate its readiness | |
191 | to accept another command. In our example, if, after typing the | |
192 | first message, you wished to reply to it, you might give the command: | |
193 | .(l | |
194 | reply | |
195 | .)l | |
196 | .i Mail | |
197 | responds by typing: | |
198 | .(l | |
199 | To: root | |
200 | Subject: Re: Tuition fees | |
201 | .)l | |
202 | and waiting for you to enter your letter. | |
203 | You are now in the message collection mode described at the beginning | |
204 | of this section and | |
205 | .i Mail | |
206 | will gather up your message up to a control\-d. | |
207 | Note that it copies the subject | |
208 | header from the original message. This is useful in that correspondence | |
209 | about a particular matter will tend to retain the same subject heading, | |
210 | making it easy to recognize. If there are other header fields in | |
211 | the message, the information found will also be used. | |
212 | For example, if the letter had a | |
213 | .q "To:" | |
214 | header listing several recipients, | |
215 | .i Mail | |
216 | would arrange to send your replay to the same people as well. | |
217 | Similarly, if the original message contained a | |
218 | .q "Cc:" | |
219 | (carbon copies to) field, | |
220 | .i Mail | |
221 | would send your reply to | |
222 | .i those | |
223 | users, too. | |
224 | .i Mail | |
225 | is careful, though, not too send the message to | |
226 | .i you , | |
227 | even if you appear in the | |
228 | .q "To:" | |
229 | or | |
230 | .q "Cc:" | |
231 | field, unless you ask to be included explicitly. See section 4 for more | |
232 | details. | |
233 | .pp | |
234 | After typing in your letter, the dialog with | |
235 | .i Mail | |
236 | might look like the following: | |
237 | .(l | |
238 | reply | |
239 | To: root | |
240 | Subject: Tuition fees | |
241 | ||
242 | Thanks for the reminder | |
243 | EOT | |
244 | & | |
245 | .)l | |
246 | .pp | |
247 | The | |
248 | .b reply | |
249 | command is especially useful for sustaining extended conversations | |
250 | over the message system, with other | |
251 | .q listening | |
252 | users receiving copies of the conversation. The | |
253 | .b reply | |
254 | command can be abbreviated to | |
255 | .b r . | |
256 | .pp | |
257 | Sometimes you will receive a message that has been sent to | |
258 | several people and wish to reply | |
259 | .i only | |
260 | to the person who sent it. | |
261 | .b Reply | |
262 | with a capital | |
263 | .b R | |
264 | replies to a message, but sends a copy to the sender only. | |
265 | .pp | |
266 | If you wish, while reading your mail, to send a message to someone, | |
267 | but not as a reply to one of your messages, you can send the message | |
268 | directly with the | |
269 | .b mail | |
270 | command, which takes as arguments the names of the recipients you wish | |
271 | to send to. For example, to send a message to | |
272 | .q frank, | |
273 | you would do: | |
274 | .(l | |
275 | mail frank | |
276 | This is to confirm our meeting next Friday at 4. | |
277 | EOT | |
278 | & | |
279 | .)l | |
280 | The | |
281 | .b mail | |
282 | command can be abbreviated to | |
283 | .b m . | |
284 | .pp | |
285 | Normally, each message you receive is saved in the file | |
286 | .i mbox | |
287 | in your login directory at the time you leave | |
288 | .i Mail . | |
289 | Often, | |
290 | however, you will not want to save a particular message you | |
291 | have received because it is only of passing interest. To avoid | |
292 | saving a message in | |
293 | .i mbox | |
294 | you can delete it using the | |
295 | .b delete | |
296 | command. In our example, | |
297 | .(l | |
298 | delete 1 | |
299 | .)l | |
300 | will prevent | |
301 | .i Mail | |
302 | from saving message 1 (from root) in | |
303 | .i mbox . | |
304 | In addition to not saving deleted messages, | |
305 | .i Mail | |
306 | will not let | |
307 | you type them, either. The effect is to make the message disappear | |
308 | altogether, along with its number. The | |
309 | .b delete | |
310 | command can be abbreviated to simply | |
311 | .b d . | |
312 | .pp | |
313 | Many features of | |
314 | .i Mail | |
315 | can be tailored to your liking with the | |
316 | .b set | |
317 | command. The | |
318 | .b set | |
319 | command has two forms, depending on whether you are setting | |
320 | a | |
321 | .i binary | |
322 | option or a | |
323 | .i valued | |
324 | option. | |
325 | Binary options are either on or off. For example, the | |
326 | .q ask | |
327 | option informs | |
328 | .i Mail | |
329 | that each time you send a message, you want it to prompt you for | |
330 | a subject header, to be included in the message. | |
331 | To set the | |
332 | .q ask | |
333 | option, you would type | |
334 | .(l | |
335 | set ask | |
336 | .)l | |
337 | .pp | |
338 | Another useful | |
339 | .i Mail | |
340 | option is | |
341 | .q hold. | |
342 | Unless told otherwise, | |
343 | .i Mail | |
344 | moves the messages from your system mailbox to the file | |
345 | .i mbox | |
346 | in your home directory when you leave | |
347 | .i Mail . | |
348 | If you want | |
349 | .i Mail | |
350 | to keep your letters in the system mailbox instead, you can set the | |
351 | .q hold | |
352 | option. | |
353 | .pp | |
354 | Valued options are values which | |
355 | .i Mail | |
356 | uses to adapt to your tastes. For example, the | |
357 | .q SHELL | |
358 | option tells | |
359 | .i Mail | |
360 | which shell you like to use, and is specified by | |
361 | .(l | |
362 | set SHELL=/bin/csh | |
363 | .)l | |
364 | for example. Note that no spaces are allowed in | |
365 | .q "SHELL=/bin/csh." | |
366 | A complete list of the | |
367 | .i Mail | |
368 | options appears in section 5. | |
369 | .pp | |
370 | Another important valued option is | |
371 | .q crt. | |
372 | If you use a fast video terminal, you will find that when you | |
373 | print long messages, they fly by too quickly for you to read them. | |
374 | With the | |
375 | .q crt | |
376 | option, you can make | |
377 | .i Mail | |
378 | print any message larger than a given number of lines by sending | |
8c80966d CL |
379 | it through a paging program. This program is specified by the |
380 | valued option \fBPAGER\fP. | |
381 | If \fBPAGER\fP is not set, a default paginator is used. | |
0d192f4a KD |
382 | For example, most CRT users with 24-line screens should do: |
383 | .(l | |
384 | set crt=24 | |
385 | .)l | |
386 | to paginate messages that will not fit on their screens. | |
8c80966d CL |
387 | In the default state, \fImore\fP (default paginator) prints a screenful of |
388 | information, then types --More--. Type a space to see the next screenful. | |
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389 | .pp |
390 | Another adaptation to user needs that | |
391 | .i Mail | |
392 | provides is that of | |
393 | .i aliases . | |
394 | An alias is simply a name which stands for one or more | |
395 | real user names. | |
396 | .i Mail | |
397 | sent to an alias is really sent to the list of real users | |
398 | associated with it. For example, an alias can be defined for the | |
399 | members of a project, so that you can send mail to the whole project | |
400 | by sending mail to just a single name. The | |
401 | .b alias | |
402 | command in | |
403 | .i Mail | |
404 | defines an alias. Suppose that the users in a project are | |
405 | named Sam, Sally, Steve, and Susan. To define an alias called | |
406 | .q project | |
407 | for them, you would use the | |
408 | .i Mail | |
409 | command: | |
410 | .(l | |
411 | alias project sam sally steve susan | |
412 | .)l | |
413 | The | |
414 | .b alias | |
415 | command can also be used to provide a convenient name for someone | |
416 | whose user name is inconvenient. For example, if a user named | |
417 | .q "Bob Anderson" | |
418 | had the login name | |
419 | .q anderson," | |
420 | you might want to use: | |
421 | .(l | |
422 | alias bob anderson | |
423 | .)l | |
424 | so that you could send mail to the shorter name, | |
425 | .q bob. | |
426 | .pp | |
427 | While the | |
428 | .b alias | |
429 | and | |
430 | .b set | |
431 | commands allow you to customize | |
432 | .i Mail , | |
433 | they have the drawback that they must be retyped each time you enter | |
434 | .i Mail . | |
435 | To make them more convenient to use, | |
436 | .i Mail | |
437 | always looks for two files when it is invoked. It first reads | |
438 | a system wide file | |
439 | .q /usr/lib/Mail.rc, | |
440 | then a user specific file, | |
441 | .q .mailrc, | |
442 | which is found in the user's home directory. | |
443 | The system wide file | |
444 | is maintained by the system administrator and | |
445 | contains | |
446 | .b set | |
447 | commands that are applicable to all users of the system. | |
448 | The | |
449 | .q .mailrc | |
450 | file is usually used by each user to set options the way he likes | |
451 | and define individual aliases. | |
452 | For example, my .mailrc file looks like this: | |
453 | .(l | |
454 | set ask nosave SHELL=/bin/csh | |
455 | .)l | |
456 | As you can see, it is possible to set many options in the | |
457 | same | |
458 | .b set | |
459 | command. The | |
460 | .q nosave | |
461 | option is described in section 5. | |
462 | .pp | |
463 | Mail aliasing is implemented | |
464 | at the system-wide level | |
465 | by the mail delivery | |
466 | system | |
467 | .i sendmail . | |
468 | These aliases are stored in the file /usr/lib/aliases and are | |
469 | accessible to all users of the system. | |
470 | The lines in /usr/lib/aliases are of | |
471 | the form: | |
472 | .(l | |
473 | alias: name\*<1\*>, name\*<2\*>, name\*<3\*> | |
474 | .)l | |
475 | where | |
476 | .i alias | |
477 | is the mailing list name and the | |
478 | .i name\*<i\*> | |
479 | are the members of the list. Long lists can be continued onto the next | |
480 | line by starting the next line with a space or tab. Remember that you | |
481 | must execute the shell command | |
482 | .i newaliases | |
483 | after editing /usr/lib/aliases since the delivery system | |
484 | uses an indexed file created by | |
485 | .i newaliases . | |
486 | .pp | |
487 | We have seen that | |
488 | .i Mail | |
489 | can be invoked with command line arguments which are people | |
490 | to send the message to, or with no arguments to read mail. | |
491 | Specifying the | |
492 | .rb \-f | |
493 | flag on the command line causes | |
494 | .i Mail | |
495 | to read messages from a file other than your system mailbox. | |
496 | For example, if you have a collection of messages in | |
497 | the file | |
498 | .q letters | |
499 | you can use | |
500 | .i Mail | |
501 | to read them with: | |
502 | .(l | |
503 | % Mail \-f letters | |
504 | .)l | |
505 | You can use all | |
506 | the | |
507 | .i Mail | |
508 | commands described in this document to examine, modify, or delete | |
509 | messages from your | |
510 | .q letters | |
511 | file, which will be rewritten when you leave | |
512 | .i Mail | |
513 | with the | |
514 | .b quit | |
515 | command described below. | |
516 | .pp | |
517 | Since mail that you read is saved in the file | |
518 | .i mbox | |
519 | in your home directory by default, you can read | |
520 | .i mbox | |
521 | in your home directory by using simply | |
522 | .(l | |
523 | % Mail \-f | |
524 | .)l | |
525 | .pp | |
526 | Normally, messages that you examine using the | |
527 | .b type | |
528 | command are saved in the file | |
529 | .q mbox | |
530 | in your home directory if you leave | |
531 | .i Mail | |
532 | with the | |
533 | .b quit | |
534 | command described below. | |
535 | If you wish to retain a message in your system mailbox | |
536 | you can use the | |
537 | .b preserve | |
538 | command to tell | |
539 | .i Mail | |
540 | to leave it there. | |
541 | The | |
542 | .b preserve | |
543 | command accepts a list of message numbers, just like | |
544 | .b type | |
545 | and may be abbreviated to | |
546 | .b pre . | |
547 | .pp | |
548 | Messages in your system mailbox that you do not examine are | |
549 | normally retained in your system mailbox automatically. | |
550 | If you wish to have such a message saved in | |
551 | .i mbox | |
552 | without reading it, you may use the | |
553 | .b mbox | |
554 | command to have them so saved. For example, | |
555 | .(l | |
556 | mbox 2 | |
557 | .)l | |
558 | in our example would cause the second message (from sam) | |
559 | to be saved in | |
560 | .i mbox | |
561 | when the | |
562 | .b quit | |
563 | command is executed. | |
564 | .b Mbox | |
565 | is also the way to direct messages to your | |
566 | .i mbox | |
567 | file if you have set the | |
568 | .q hold | |
569 | option described above. | |
570 | .b Mbox | |
571 | can be abbreviated to | |
572 | .b mb . | |
573 | .pp | |
574 | When you have perused all the messages of interest, you can leave | |
575 | .i Mail | |
576 | with the | |
577 | .b quit | |
578 | command, which saves the messages you have typed but not | |
579 | deleted in the file | |
580 | .i mbox | |
581 | in your login directory. Deleted messages are discarded irretrievably, | |
582 | and messages left untouched are preserved in your system mailbox so | |
583 | that you will see them the next time you type: | |
584 | .(l | |
585 | ||
586 | .)l | |
587 | The | |
588 | .b quit | |
589 | command can be abbreviated to simply | |
590 | .b q . | |
591 | .pp | |
592 | If you wish for some reason to leave | |
593 | .i Mail | |
594 | quickly without altering either your system mailbox or | |
595 | .i mbox , | |
596 | you can type the | |
597 | .b x | |
598 | command (short for | |
599 | .b exit ), | |
600 | which will immediately return you to the Shell without changing anything. | |
601 | .pp | |
602 | If, instead, you want to execute a Shell command without leaving | |
603 | .i Mail , | |
604 | you | |
605 | can type the command preceded by an exclamation point, just as in the | |
606 | text editor. Thus, for instance: | |
607 | .(l | |
608 | !date | |
609 | .)l | |
610 | will print the current date without leaving | |
611 | .i Mail . | |
612 | .pp | |
613 | Finally, the | |
614 | .b help | |
615 | command is available to print out a brief summary of the | |
616 | .i Mail | |
617 | commands, using only the single character command abbreviations. |