notify(1)                USER COMMANDS                  notify(1)



NAME
     notify - notify user of the arrival of new mail

SYNOPSIS
     notify -y [ -m mailfile ]
     notify [ -n ]

DESCRIPTION
     When a new mail message  arrives,  the  mail  command  first
     checks if the recipient's mailbox indicates that the message
     is to be forwarded elsewhere (to some other recipient or  as
     the  input  to some command).  notify is used to set up for-
     warding on the user's mailbox so that  the  new  message  is
     saved  into  an  alternative  mailbox  and,  if  the user is
     currently logged in, he or she is  notified  immediately  of
     the arrival of new mail.

     Command-line options are:
     -m mailfile File to save mail messages into while  automatic
                 notification is activated.  If not specified, it
                 defaults to $HOME/.mailfile.
     -n          Remove mail notification facility
     -y          Install mail notification facility

     If  invoked  with  no  arguments,  notify  reports   whether
     automatic mail notification is activated or not.

     The notification is done  by  looking  in  /var/adm/utmp  to
     determine  if  the  recipient is currently logged in, and if
     so, on which terminal device. Then the  terminal  device  is
     opened  for  writing  and the user is notified about the new
     message.  The notification will indicate who the message  is
     from.   If  the  message  contains a Subject: header line it
     will be included.  (For security, all unprintable characters
     within  the  header  will  be  converted  to  an exclamation
     point.)

     If the user is logged in multiple times he or she  will  get
     multiple notifications, one per terminal.  To disable notif-
     ications to a particular login session, the mesg(1)  command
     can be used to disable writing to that terminal.

     If there are multiple machines connected together via RFS or
     NFS,  notify  will  look  up  the /var/adm/utmp files on the
     other   systems   as   well.    To   do   this,   the   file
     /etc/mail/notify.sys  will  be consulted, which will contain
     two columns, the first being the name of a  system  and  the
     second  being  a  path  to find the root filesystem for that
     machine.

     If notify has troubles delivering the mail to the  specified
     mailfile,  notify will look up the directory of the mailfile



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notify(1)                USER COMMANDS                  notify(1)



     in /etc/mail/notify.fsys.  If the file's directory is  found
     in  the first column of the file, the mail will be forwarded
     to the system listed in the second column instead  of  being
     returned to the sender.

FILES
     /tmp/notif*       temporary file
     /var/mail/*       users' standard mailboxes
     /usr/lib/mail/notify2
                       program that performs the notification
     /etc/mail/notify.fsys
                       list of file systems and home systems
     /etc/mail/notify.sys
                       list of machines and paths to  their  root
                       filesystems
     /var/adm/utmp     list of users who are logged in

SEE ALSO
     mail(1), mesg(1).
     User's Guide.

NOTES
     Because notify uses the ``Forward to |command'' facility  of
     mail  to  implement notifications, /var/mail/username should
     not be specified as the place to put newly arrived  messages
     via  the  -m  invocation  option.   The  mail  command  uses
     /var/mail/username to hold either mail messages, or  indica-
     tions of mail forwarding, but not both simultaneously.

     If the user is using layers(1), the notification  will  only
     appear in the login window.
























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