comsat(1M)             UNIX System V(Internet Utilities)             comsat(1M)


NAME
      comsat, in.comsat - biff server

SYNOPSIS
      in.comsat

DESCRIPTION
      comsat is the server process which listens for reports of incoming mail
      and notifies users who have requested to be told when mail arrives.  It
      is invoked as needed by inetd(1M), and times out if inactive for a few
      minutes.

      comsat listens on a datagram port associated with the biff service
      specification [see services(4)] for one line messages of the form

            user@mailbox-offset

      If the user specified is logged in to the system and the associated
      terminal has the owner execute bit turned on (by a biff y), the offset is
      used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file and the first 7
      lines or 560 characters of the message are printed on the user's
      terminal.  Lines which appear to be part of the message header other than
      the From, To, Date, or Subject lines are not printed when displaying the
      message.

FILES
      /var/utmp           who's logged on and on what terminals

SEE ALSO
      services(4), inetd(1M)

NOTES
      The message header filtering is prone to error.





















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