comsat(1M)                                                       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 inac-
     tive 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.

NOTE
     The message header filtering is prone to error.

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

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





















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