Minix Man Pages

Man Page or Keyword Search:
Man Architecture
Apropos Keyword Search (all sections) Output format
home | help
MAIL(1)                     General Commands Manual                    MAIL(1)

NAME
       mail - send and receive electronic mail

SYNOPSIS
       mail [-epqr] [-f file]
       mail [-dtv] [-s subject] user [...]

OPTIONS
       -e   #  Exit  with status TRUE or FALSE to indicate if there is mail in
            mailbox

       -p   # Print all mail and then exit

       -q   # Quit program if SIGINT received

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

       -f   # Use file instead of /var/mail/user as mailbox

       -d   # Force use of the shell variable MAILER

       -t   # Show distribution list as Dist: header in message

       -v   # Verbose mode (passed on to MAILER)

       -s   # Use Subject: subject

EXAMPLES
       mail ast            # Send a message to ast

       mail                # Read your mail

       cat mail.cdiff | mail -s ''Here's the diff!'' asw
                           # Pipe program output to mail with a subject line

       mail -f /var/mail/asw
                           # How root can read asw's mail

DESCRIPTION
       Mail is an extremely simple electronic mail program.  It can be used to
       send  or  receive  email  on  a single MINIX 3 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 3.

       When called  by  user  with  no  arguments,  it  examines  the  mailbox
       /var/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 one or more recipients as
       arguments.  The mail is sent, along with a postmark line containing the date.
       For local delivery, a file named after each recipient in the directory
       /var/mail must be writable. If a spool file does not exist for
       a recipient it will be created.

       If the directory /var/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.

       The received mail contains a To: header showing the recipient. If there
       are multiple recipients and the -t option is specified each recipient
       will also see a Dist: header line showing the other recipients.

       The -s option allows a subject to be specified. The subject must be
       quoted if it contains spaces. If no subject is specified the mail
       will be delivered with Subject: No subject.

NOTES
       The -s option was added to make this  simple  mail  program  consistent
       with  mail  programs  found  in  other  *nix  variants.  Many programs,
       including the version of cron distributed with MINIX 3  releases  2.0.3
       and later, report their outcome by piping output to the mail program in
       order to send a mail message to root in lieu of  writing  a  log  file.
       Such  programs  often  expect the mail program to accept a subject line
       using this option.

BUGS
       If an external MAILER  is  used  it  is  likely  the  conditional  code
       supporting this will need some editing to be made to work correctly.

AUTHOR
       The  original  mail program for MINIX 3 was written by Peter B. Housel.
       The -e and -t options were added by C. W. Rose. The -s option was added
       by A. S. Woodhull. This man page revised by ASW 2003-07-18.

                                                                       MAIL(1)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | DESCRIPTION | NOTES | BUGS | AUTHOR