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1.1 root 1: .\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
2: .\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
3: .\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
4: .\"
5: .\" @(#)mail2.nr 6.1 (Berkeley) 5/23/86
6: .\"
7: .bp
8: .sh 1 "Common usage"
9: .pp
10: The
11: .i Mail
12: command has two distinct usages, according to whether one
13: wants to send or receive mail. Sending mail is simple: to send a
14: message to a user whose login name is, say,
15: \*(lqroot,\*(rq
16: use the shell
17: command:
18: .(l
19: % Mail root
20: .)l
21: then type your message. When you reach the end of the message, type
22: an EOT (control\-d) at the beginning of a line, which will cause
23: .i Mail
24: to echo \*(lqEOT\*(rq and return you to the Shell. When the user you sent mail
25: to next logs in, he will receive the message:
26: .(l
27: You have mail.
28: .)l
29: to alert him to the existence of your message.
30: .pp
31: If, while you are composing the message
32: you decide that you do not wish to send it after all, you can
33: abort the letter with a \s-2RUBOUT\s0. Typing a single \s-2RUBOUT\s0
34: causes
35: .i Mail
36: to print
37: .(l
38: (Interrupt -- one more to kill letter)
39: .)l
40: Typing a second
41: \s-2RUBOUT\s0 causes
42: .i Mail
43: to save your partial letter on the file
44: .q dead.letter
45: in your home directory and abort the letter.
46: Once you have
47: sent mail to someone, there is no way to undo the act, so be
48: careful.
49: .pp
50: The message your recipient reads will consist of the message you
51: typed, preceded by a line telling who sent the message (your login name)
52: and the date and time it
53: was sent.
54: .pp
55: If you want to send the same message to several other people, you can list
56: their login names on the command line.
57: Thus,
58: .(l
59: % Mail sam bob john
60: Tuition fees are due next Friday. Don't forget!!
61: <Control\-d>
62: EOT
63: %
64: .)l
65: will send the reminder to sam, bob, and john.
66: .pp
67: If, when you log in, you see the message,
68: .(l
69: You have mail.
70: .)l
71: you can read the mail by typing simply:
72: .(l
73: % Mail
74: .)l
75: .i Mail
76: will respond by typing its version number and date and then listing
77: the messages you have waiting. Then it will type a prompt and await
78: your command. The messages are assigned numbers starting with 1 \*- you
79: refer to the messages with these numbers.
80: .i Mail
81: keeps track of which messages are
82: .i new
83: (have been sent since you last read your mail) and
84: .i read
85: (have been read by you). New messages have an
86: .b N
87: next to them in the header listing and old, but unread messages have
88: a
89: .b U
90: next to them.
91: .i Mail
92: keeps track of new/old and read/unread messages by putting a
93: header field called
94: .q Status
95: into your messages.
96: .pp
97: To look at a specific message, use the
98: .b type
99: command, which may be abbreviated to simply
100: .b t .
101: For example, if you had the following messages:
102: .(l
103: N 1 root Wed Sep 21 09:21 "Tuition fees"
104: N 2 sam Tue Sep 20 22:55
105: .)l
106: you could examine the first message by giving the command:
107: .(l
108: type 1
109: .)l
110: which might cause
111: .i Mail
112: to respond with, for example:
113: .(l
114: Message 1:
115: From root Wed Sep 21 09:21:45 1978
116: Subject: Tuition fees
117: Status: R
118:
119: Tuition fees are due next Wednesday. Don't forget!!
120:
121: .)l
122: Many
123: .i Mail
124: commands that operate on messages take a message number as an
125: argument like the
126: .b type
127: command. For these commands, there is a notion of a current
128: message. When you enter the
129: .i Mail
130: program, the current message is initially the first one. Thus,
131: you can often omit the message number and use, for example,
132: .(l
133: t
134: .)l
135: to type the current message. As a further shorthand, you can type a message
136: by simply giving its message number. Hence,
137: .(l
138: 1
139: .)l
140: would type the first message.
141: .pp
142: Frequently, it is useful to read the messages in your mailbox in order,
143: one after another. You can read the next message in
144: .i Mail
145: by simply typing a newline. As a special case, you can type a newline
146: as your first command to
147: .i Mail
148: to type the first message.
149: .pp
150: If, after typing a message, you wish to immediately send a reply,
151: you can do so with the
152: .b reply
153: command.
154: .b Reply ,
155: like
156: .b type ,
157: takes a message number as an argument.
158: .i Mail
159: then begins a message addressed to the user who sent you the message.
160: You may then type in your letter in reply, followed by a <control-d>
161: at the beginning of a line, as before.
162: .i Mail
163: will type EOT, then type the ampersand prompt to indicate its readiness
164: to accept another command. In our example, if, after typing the
165: first message, you wished to reply to it, you might give the command:
166: .(l
167: reply
168: .)l
169: .i Mail
170: responds by typing:
171: .(l
172: To: root
173: Subject: Re: Tuition fees
174: .)l
175: and waiting for you to enter your letter.
176: You are now in the message collection mode described at the beginning
177: of this section and
178: .i Mail
179: will gather up your message up to a control\-d.
180: Note that it copies the subject
181: header from the original message. This is useful in that correspondence
182: about a particular matter will tend to retain the same subject heading,
183: making it easy to recognize. If there are other header fields in
184: the message, the information found will also be used.
185: For example, if the letter had a
186: .q "To:"
187: header listing several recipients,
188: .i Mail
189: would arrange to send your replay to the same people as well.
190: Similarly, if the original message contained a
191: .q "Cc:"
192: (carbon copies to) field,
193: .i Mail
194: would send your reply to
195: .i those
196: users, too.
197: .i Mail
198: is careful, though, not too send the message to
199: .i you ,
200: even if you appear in the
201: .q "To:"
202: or
203: .q "Cc:"
204: field, unless you ask to be included explicitly. See section 4 for more
205: details.
206: .pp
207: After typing in your letter, the dialog with
208: .i Mail
209: might look like the following:
210: .(l
211: reply
212: To: root
213: Subject: Tuition fees
214:
215: Thanks for the reminder
216: EOT
217: &
218: .)l
219: .pp
220: The
221: .b reply
222: command is especially useful for sustaining extended conversations
223: over the message system, with other
224: .q listening
225: users receiving copies of the conversation. The
226: .b reply
227: command can be abbreviated to
228: .b r .
229: .pp
230: Sometimes you will receive a message that has been sent to
231: several people and wish to reply
232: .i only
233: to the person who sent it.
234: .b Reply
235: with a capital
236: .b R
237: replies to a message, but sends a copy to the sender only.
238: .pp
239: If you wish, while reading your mail, to send a message to someone,
240: but not as a reply to one of your messages, you can send the message
241: directly with the
242: .b mail
243: command, which takes as arguments the names of the recipients you wish
244: to send to. For example, to send a message to
245: .q frank,
246: you would do:
247: .(l
248: mail frank
249: This is to confirm our meeting next Friday at 4.
250: EOT
251: &
252: .)l
253: The
254: .b mail
255: command can be abbreviated to
256: .b m .
257: .pp
258: Normally, each message you receive is saved in the file
259: .i mbox
260: in your login directory at the time you leave
261: .i Mail .
262: Often,
263: however, you will not want to save a particular message you
264: have received because it is only of passing interest. To avoid
265: saving a message in
266: .i mbox
267: you can delete it using the
268: .b delete
269: command. In our example,
270: .(l
271: delete 1
272: .)l
273: will prevent
274: .i Mail
275: from saving message 1 (from root) in
276: .i mbox .
277: In addition to not saving deleted messages,
278: .i Mail
279: will not let
280: you type them, either. The effect is to make the message disappear
281: altogether, along with its number. The
282: .b delete
283: command can be abbreviated to simply
284: .b d .
285: .pp
286: Many features of
287: .i Mail
288: can be tailored to your liking with the
289: .b set
290: command. The
291: .b set
292: command has two forms, depending on whether you are setting
293: a
294: .i binary
295: option or a
296: .i valued
297: option.
298: Binary options are either on or off. For example, the
299: .q ask
300: option informs
301: .i Mail
302: that each time you send a message, you want it to prompt you for
303: a subject header, to be included in the message.
304: To set the
305: .q ask
306: option, you would type
307: .(l
308: set ask
309: .)l
310: .pp
311: Another useful
312: .i Mail
313: option is
314: .q hold.
315: Unless told otherwise,
316: .i Mail
317: moves the messages from your system mailbox to the file
318: .i mbox
319: in your home directory when you leave
320: .i Mail .
321: If you want
322: .i Mail
323: to keep your letters in the system mailbox instead, you can set the
324: .q hold
325: option.
326: .pp
327: Valued options are values which
328: .i Mail
329: uses to adapt to your tastes. For example, the
330: .q SHELL
331: option tells
332: .i Mail
333: which shell you like to use, and is specified by
334: .(l
335: set SHELL=/bin/csh
336: .)l
337: for example. Note that no spaces are allowed in
338: .q "SHELL=/bin/csh."
339: A complete list of the
340: .i Mail
341: options appears in section 5.
342: .pp
343: Another important valued option is
344: .q crt.
345: If you use a fast video terminal, you will find that when you
346: print long messages, they fly by too quickly for you to read them.
347: With the
348: .q crt
349: option, you can make
350: .i Mail
351: print any message larger than a given number of lines by sending
352: it through a paging program. This program is specified by the
353: valued option \fBPAGER\fP.
354: If \fBPAGER\fP is not set, a default paginator is used.
355: For example, most CRT users with 24-line screens should do:
356: .(l
357: set crt=24
358: .)l
359: to paginate messages that will not fit on their screens.
360: In the default state, \fImore\fP (default paginator) prints a screenful of
361: information, then types --More--. Type a space to see the next screenful.
362: .pp
363: Another adaptation to user needs that
364: .i Mail
365: provides is that of
366: .i aliases .
367: An alias is simply a name which stands for one or more
368: real user names.
369: .i Mail
370: sent to an alias is really sent to the list of real users
371: associated with it. For example, an alias can be defined for the
372: members of a project, so that you can send mail to the whole project
373: by sending mail to just a single name. The
374: .b alias
375: command in
376: .i Mail
377: defines an alias. Suppose that the users in a project are
378: named Sam, Sally, Steve, and Susan. To define an alias called
379: .q project
380: for them, you would use the
381: .i Mail
382: command:
383: .(l
384: alias project sam sally steve susan
385: .)l
386: The
387: .b alias
388: command can also be used to provide a convenient name for someone
389: whose user name is inconvenient. For example, if a user named
390: .q "Bob Anderson"
391: had the login name
392: .q anderson,"
393: you might want to use:
394: .(l
395: alias bob anderson
396: .)l
397: so that you could send mail to the shorter name,
398: .q bob.
399: .pp
400: While the
401: .b alias
402: and
403: .b set
404: commands allow you to customize
405: .i Mail ,
406: they have the drawback that they must be retyped each time you enter
407: .i Mail .
408: To make them more convenient to use,
409: .i Mail
410: always looks for two files when it is invoked. It first reads
411: a system wide file
412: .q /usr/lib/Mail.rc,
413: then a user specific file,
414: .q .mailrc,
415: which is found in the user's home directory.
416: The system wide file
417: is maintained by the system administrator and
418: contains
419: .b set
420: commands that are applicable to all users of the system.
421: The
422: .q .mailrc
423: file is usually used by each user to set options the way he likes
424: and define individual aliases.
425: For example, my .mailrc file looks like this:
426: .(l
427: set ask nosave SHELL=/bin/csh
428: .)l
429: As you can see, it is possible to set many options in the
430: same
431: .b set
432: command. The
433: .q nosave
434: option is described in section 5.
435: .pp
436: Mail aliasing is implemented
437: at the system-wide level
438: by the mail delivery
439: system
440: .i sendmail .
441: These aliases are stored in the file /usr/lib/aliases and are
442: accessible to all users of the system.
443: The lines in /usr/lib/aliases are of
444: the form:
445: .(l
446: alias: name\*<1\*>, name\*<2\*>, name\*<3\*>
447: .)l
448: where
449: .i alias
450: is the mailing list name and the
451: .i name\*<i\*>
452: are the members of the list. Long lists can be continued onto the next
453: line by starting the next line with a space or tab. Remember that you
454: must execute the shell command
455: .i newaliases
456: after editing /usr/lib/aliases since the delivery system
457: uses an indexed file created by
458: .i newaliases .
459: .pp
460: We have seen that
461: .i Mail
462: can be invoked with command line arguments which are people
463: to send the message to, or with no arguments to read mail.
464: Specifying the
465: .rb \-f
466: flag on the command line causes
467: .i Mail
468: to read messages from a file other than your system mailbox.
469: For example, if you have a collection of messages in
470: the file
471: .q letters
472: you can use
473: .i Mail
474: to read them with:
475: .(l
476: % Mail \-f letters
477: .)l
478: You can use all
479: the
480: .i Mail
481: commands described in this document to examine, modify, or delete
482: messages from your
483: .q letters
484: file, which will be rewritten when you leave
485: .i Mail
486: with the
487: .b quit
488: command described below.
489: .pp
490: Since mail that you read is saved in the file
491: .i mbox
492: in your home directory by default, you can read
493: .i mbox
494: in your home directory by using simply
495: .(l
496: % Mail \-f
497: .)l
498: .pp
499: Normally, messages that you examine using the
500: .b type
501: command are saved in the file
502: .q mbox
503: in your home directory if you leave
504: .i Mail
505: with the
506: .b quit
507: command described below.
508: If you wish to retain a message in your system mailbox
509: you can use the
510: .b preserve
511: command to tell
512: .i Mail
513: to leave it there.
514: The
515: .b preserve
516: command accepts a list of message numbers, just like
517: .b type
518: and may be abbreviated to
519: .b pre .
520: .pp
521: Messages in your system mailbox that you do not examine are
522: normally retained in your system mailbox automatically.
523: If you wish to have such a message saved in
524: .i mbox
525: without reading it, you may use the
526: .b mbox
527: command to have them so saved. For example,
528: .(l
529: mbox 2
530: .)l
531: in our example would cause the second message (from sam)
532: to be saved in
533: .i mbox
534: when the
535: .b quit
536: command is executed.
537: .b Mbox
538: is also the way to direct messages to your
539: .i mbox
540: file if you have set the
541: .q hold
542: option described above.
543: .b Mbox
544: can be abbreviated to
545: .b mb .
546: .pp
547: When you have perused all the messages of interest, you can leave
548: .i Mail
549: with the
550: .b quit
551: command, which saves the messages you have typed but not
552: deleted in the file
553: .i mbox
554: in your login directory. Deleted messages are discarded irretrievably,
555: and messages left untouched are preserved in your system mailbox so
556: that you will see them the next time you type:
557: .(l
558: % Mail
559: .)l
560: The
561: .b quit
562: command can be abbreviated to simply
563: .b q .
564: .pp
565: If you wish for some reason to leave
566: .i Mail
567: quickly without altering either your system mailbox or
568: .i mbox ,
569: you can type the
570: .b x
571: command (short for
572: .b exit ),
573: which will immediately return you to the Shell without changing anything.
574: .pp
575: If, instead, you want to execute a Shell command without leaving
576: .i Mail ,
577: you
578: can type the command preceded by an exclamation point, just as in the
579: text editor. Thus, for instance:
580: .(l
581: !date
582: .)l
583: will print the current date without leaving
584: .i Mail .
585: .pp
586: Finally, the
587: .b help
588: command is available to print out a brief summary of the
589: .i Mail
590: commands, using only the single character command abbreviations.
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