MAIL.LOCAL(8) BSD System Manager's Manual MAIL.LOCAL(8)
NAME
mail.local - store mail in a mailbox
SYNOPSIS
mail.local [-f from] user ...
DESCRIPTION
Mail.local reads the standard input up to an end-of-file and appends it
to each user's mail file. The user must be a valid user name.
The options are as follows:
-f from Specify the sender's name.
Individual mail messages in the mailbox are delimited by an empty line
followed by a line beginning with the string ``From ''. A line contain-
ing the string ``From '', the sender's name and a time stamp is prepended
to each delivered mail message. A blank line is appended to each mes-
sage. A greater-than character (``>'') is prepended to any line in the
message which could be mistaken for a ``From '' delimiter line.
The mail files are exclusively locked with flock(2) while mail is append-
ed.
If the ``biff'' service is returned by getservbyname(3), the biff server
is notified of delivered mail.
The mail.local utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
ENVIRONMENT
TZ Used to set the appropriate time zone on the timestamp.
FILES
/tmp/local.XXXXXX temporary files
/var/mail/user user's mailbox directory
SEE ALSO
mail(1), xsend(1), flock(2), getservbyname(3), comsat(8), send-
mail(8)
HISTORY
A superset of mail.local (handling mailbox reading as well as mail deliv-
ery) appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX. as the program mail.
4.4BSD December 11, 1993