mail(1) [minix man page]

MAIL(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   MAIL(1)

NAME

       mail - send and receive electronic mail

SYNOPSIS

       mail [-dpqrv] [-f file] [user]

OPTIONS

       -d     Force use of the shell variable MAILER

       -f     Use file instead of /usr/spool/mail/user as mailbox

       -p     Print all mail and then exit

       -q     Quit program if SIGINT received

       -r     Reverse print order, i.e., print oldest first

       -v     Verbose mode

EXAMPLES

       mail ast 	   # Send a message to ast

       mail		   # Read your mail

DESCRIPTION

       Mail  is  an  extremely simple electronic mail program.	It can be used to send or receive email on a single MINIX system, in which case it
       functions as user agent and local delivery agent.  If the flag MAILER is defined in mail.c, it can also call a transport  agent	to  handle
       remote mail as well.  No such agent is supplied with MINIX.

       When  called  by  user  with no arguments, it examines the mailbox /usr/spool/mail/user, prints one message (depending on the -r flag), and
       waits for one of the following commands:

	 <newline> Go to the next message
	 -	   Print the previous message
	 !command  Fork off a shell and execute command
	 CTRL-D    Update the mailbox and quit (same as q)
	 d	   Delete the current message and go to the next one
	 q	   Update the mailbox and quit (same as CTRL-D)
	 p	   Print the current message again
	 s [file]  Save message in the named file
	 x	   Exit without updating the mailbox

       To send mail, the program is called with the name of the recipient as an
       argument.  The mail is sent, along with a postmark line containing the date.
       For local delivery, a file named after the recipient in the directory
       /usr/spool/mail must be writable.

       If the directory /usr/spool/mail does not exist then the mail is
       dumped on the console, so that system programs have a way to notify
       a user on a system that does not have a mail spool.

																	   MAIL(1)

binmail(1)						      General Commands Manual							binmail(1)

Name
       binmail - send or receive mail among users

Syntax
       /bin/mail [+] [-i] [person...]
       /bin/mail [+] [-i] -f file

Description
       This  is the old version 7 UNIX system mail program.  The default command is described in and its binary is in the directory The program is
       still used to actually deliver a mail message into the users system-wide mailbox ( ), however, the  reading  of	these  messages  has  been
       replaced with the program Do not remove from your system.

       The  command  with  no argument prints a user's mail, message-by-message, in last-in, first-out order; the optional argument + displays the
       mail messages in first-in, first-out order.  For each message, it reads a line from the standard input to direct  the  disposition  of  the
       message.

       Issue the following commands from the program prompt:

       <CR>		   Go on to next message

       d		   Delete message and go on to the next.

       p		   Print message again.

       -		   Go back to previous message.

       s [file...]	   Save the message in the named files (`mbox' default).

       w [file...]	   Save the message, without a header, in the named files (`mbox' default).

       m [person...]	   Mail the message to the named persons (yourself is default).

       EOT (control-D)	   Put unexamined mail back in the mailbox and stop.

       q		   Same as EOT.

       !command 	   Escape to the Shell to do command.

       *		   Print a command summary.

       An interrupt normally terminates the command; the mail file is unchanged.

       When  persons  are  named, takes the standard input up to an end-of-file (or a line with just `.')  and adds it to each person's mail file.
       The message is preceded by the sender's name and a postmark.  Lines that look like postmarks are prepended with `>'.  A person is usually a
       user  name  recognized  by  To  denote  a recipient on a remote system, prefix person by the system name and exclamation mark.  For further
       information, see

       The program sends a message to the screen that there is mail when the user logs in.

       When is used to deliver mail, (usually calls to do this), a mailbox is created for the user in the directory if it doesn't  already  exist.
       The mailbox is created with the mode 700 so that only its owner can access it.  In addition, the directory has the mode 777 with the sticky
       bit set.  The mode is 777 so that other mail programs, notably can create the appropriate lock files to prevent another process from  writ-
       ing to the mailbox at the same time.  The sticky bit set on the directory prevents one user from unlinking another user's mailbox.

Options
       -f		   Displays mail messages contained in the specified file (next argument) in place of your mailbox file.

       -i		   Notifies mail to continue after interrupts.

Restrictions
       Race conditions sometimes result in a failure to remove a lock file.

Files
       /etc/passwd	      to identify sender and locate persons
       /usr/spool/mail/*      incoming mail for user *
       mbox		      saved mail
       /tmp/ma* 	      temp file
       /usr/spool/mail/*.lock lock for mail directory
       dead.letter	      unmailable text

See Also
       mail(1), uucp(1c), uux(1c), write(1), sendmail(8)

																	binmail(1)