MAIL.LOCALSection: Maintenance Commands (8)Updated: $Date: 2001/04/05 23:27:35 $ |
NAME
mail.local - store mail in a mailboxSYNOPSIS
mail.local [-7] [-b] [-d] [-D mbdb] [-l] [-f from|-r from] [-h filename ] user ...DESCRIPTION
Mail.local reads the standard input up to an end-of-file and appends it to each user's mail file. The user must be a valid user name.The options are as follows:
- -7
- Do not advertise 8BITMIME support in LMTP mode.
- -b
- Return a permanent error instead of a temporary error if a mailbox exceeds quota.
- -d
- Specify this is a delivery (for backward compatibility). This option has no effect.
- -D mbdb
- Specify the name of the mailbox database which is used to look up local recipient names. This option defaults to "pw", which means use getpwnam().
- -f from
- Specify the sender's name.
- -l
- Turn on LMTP mode.
- -r from
- Specify the sender's name (for backward compatibility). Same as -f.
- -h filename
- Store incoming mail in filename in the user's home directory instead of a system mail spool directory.
Individual mail messages in the mailbox are delimited by an empty line followed by a line beginning with the string ``From ''. A line containing the string ``From '', the sender's name and a time stamp is prepended to each delivered mail message. A blank line is appended to each message. A greater-than character (``>'') is prepended to any line in the message which could be mistaken for a ``From '' delimiter line (that is, a line beginning with the five characters ``From '' following a blank line).
The mail files are exclusively locked with flock(2) while mail is appended, and a user.lock file also is created while the mailbox is locked for compatibility with older MUAs.
If the ``biff'' service is returned by getservbyname(3), the biff server is notified of delivered mail.
The mail.local utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
ENVIRONMENT
- TZ
- Used to set the appropriate time zone on the timestamp.
FILES
- /tmp/local.XXXXXX
- temporary files
- /var/mail/user
- user's default mailbox directory
- /var/mail/user.lock
- lock file for a user's default mailbox
SEE ALSO
mail(1), xsend(1), flock(2), getservbyname(3), comsat(8), sendmail(8)WARNING
mail.local escapes only "^From " lines that follow an empty line. If all lines starting with "From " should be escaped, use the 'E' flag for the local mailer in the sendmail.cf file.HISTORY
A superset of mail.local (handling mailbox reading as well as mail delivery) appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX as the program mail.