comsat(1M)                                                comsat(1M)


       NAME
             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

       REFERENCES
             biff(1BSD), inetd(1M), services(4)

       NOTICES
             The message header filtering is prone to error.














                           Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc.               Page 1