mail(1) mail(1)
NAME
mail, rmail - send mail to users or read mail
SYNOPSIS
mail [-e] [-ffile] [-p] [-q] [-r]
mail [-t] persons
rmail [-t] persons
DESCRIPTION
mail without arguments prints a user's mail, message-by-
message, in last-in, first-out order. For each message, the
user is prompted with a ?, and a line is read from the
standard input to determine the disposition of the message:
newline Go on to next message.
+ Same as newline.
d Delete message and go on to next
message.
p Print message again.
- Go back to previous message.
s [files] Save message in the named files (mbox is
default).
w [files] Save message, without its header, in the
named files (mbox is default).
m [persons] Mail the message to the named persons
(yourself is default).
q Put undeleted mail back in the mailfile
and stop.
EOT (CONTROL-d) Same as q.
x Put all mail back in the mailfile
unchanged and stop.
!command Escape to the shell to perform command.
* Print a command summary.
The optional arguments alter the printing of the mail:
-e causes mail not to be printed. An exit value of
0 is returned if the user has mail; otherwise, an
exit value of 1 is returned.
-p causes all mail to be printed without prompting
for disposition.
-q causes mail to terminate after interrupts.
Normally an interrupt only causes the termination
of the message being printed.
-r causes messages to be printed in first-in,
first-out order.
-ffile causes mail to use file (e.g., mbox) instead of
the default mailfile.
When persons are named, mail takes the standard input up to
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mail(1) mail(1)
an end-of-file (or up to a line consisting of just a .) and
adds it to each person's mailfile. The message is preceded
by the sender's name and a postmark. Lines that look like
postmarks in the message, (i.e., From...) are preceded with
a >. The -t flag option causes the message to be preceded
by all persons the mail is sent to. A person is usually a
user name recognized by login(1). If a person being sent
mail is not recognized, or if mail is interrupted during
input, the file dead.letter will be saved to allow editing
and resending. Note that this is regarded as a temporary
file in that it is recreated every time needed, erasing the
previous contents of dead.letter.
To denote a recipient on a remote system, prefix person by
the system name and exclamation mark (see uucp(1C)).
Everything after the first exclamation mark in persons is
interpreted by the remote system. In particular, if persons
contains additional exclamation marks, it can denote a
sequence of machines through which the message is to be sent
on the way to its ultimate destination. For example,
specifying a!b!cde as a recipient's name causes the message
to be sent to user b!cde on system a. System a will
interpret that destination as a request to send the message
to user cde on system b. This might be useful, for
instance, if the sending system can access system a but not
system b, and system a has access to system b. mail will
not use uucp if the remote system is the local system name
(i.e., localsystem!user).
The mailfile may be manipulated in two ways to alter the
function of mail. The other permissions of the file may be
read-write, read-only, or neither read nor write to allow
different levels of privacy. If changed to other than the
default, the file will be preserved even when empty to
perpetuate the desired permissions. The file may also
contain the first line:
Forward to person
which will cause all mail sent to the owner of the mailfile
to be forwarded to person. This is especially useful to
forward all of a person's mail to one machine in a multiple
machine environment. In order for forwarding to work
properly, the mailfile should have mail as group ID, and the
group permission should be read-write.
rmail permits only the sending of mail; uucp(1C) uses rmail
as a security precaution.
When a user logs in, the presence of mail, if any, is
indicated. Also, notification is made if new mail arrives
while using mail.
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mail(1) mail(1)
EXAMPLE
mail carolyn
accepts whatever message is typed up to an EOF. The user
carolyn will be notified that she has mail the next time she
logs in.
If you want to read mail that has been sent to you, simply
type
mail
FILES
/bin/mail
/bin/rmail
/etc/passwd to identify sender and locate persons
/usr/mail/user incoming mail for user; i.e., the
mailfile
$HOME/mbox saved mail
$MAIL variable containing pathname of
mailfile
/tmp/ma* temporary file
/usr/mail/*.lock lock for mail directory
dead.letter unmailable text
SEE ALSO
login(1), mailx(1), uucp(1C), write(1).
BUGS
Conditions sometimes result in a failure to remove a lock
file.
After an interrupt, the next message may not be printed;
printing may be forced by typing a p.
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