comsat(ADMN)                    19 June 1992                    comsat(ADMN)


 Name

    comsat - biff server

 Syntax

    /etc/comsat

 Description

    comsat is the server process which receives reports of incoming mail and
    notifies users if they have requested this service.  comsat receives mes-
    sages on a datagram port associated with the ``biff'' service specifica-
    tion (see services(SFF) and inetd(ADMN)).  The one line messages are of
    the form:

         user@mailbox-offset

    If the user specified is logged in to the system and the associated ter-
    minal 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 termi-
    nal.  Lines which appear to be part of the message header other than the
    ``From'', ``To'', ``Date'', or ``Subject'' lines are not included in the
    displayed message.


       /etc/utmp       to find out who is logged on and on what terminals


 Notes

    The message header filtering is prone to error.  The density of the in-
    formation presented is near the theoretical minimum.

    Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other machines than the
    one to which they are currently logged in.

 See also

    biff(TC), inetd(ADMN)