1COMSAT(8) 386BSD System Manager's Manual COMSAT(8) 2 3NNAAMMEE 4 ccoommssaatt - biff server 5 6SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS 7 ccoommssaatt 8 9DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN 10 CCoommssaatt is the server process which receives reports of incoming mail and 11 notifies users if they have requested this service. CCoommssaatt receives 12 messages on a datagram port associated with the ``biff'' service 13 specification (see services(5) and inetd(8)). The one line messages are 14 of the form: 15 16 user@mailbox-offset 17 18 If the _u_s_e_r specified is logged in to the system and the associated 19 terminal has the owner execute bit turned on (by a ``biff y''), the 20 _o_f_f_s_e_t is used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file and the 21 first 7 lines or 560 characters of the message are printed on the user's 22 terminal. Lines which appear to be part of the message header other than 23 the ``From'', ``To'', ``Date'', or ``Subject'' lines are not included in 24 the displayed message. 25 26FFIILLEESS 27 /var/run/utmp to find out who's logged on and on what terminals 28 29SSEEEE AALLSSOO 30 biff(1), inetd(8) 31 32BBUUGGSS 33 The message header filtering is prone to error. The density of the 34 information presented is near the theoretical minimum. 35 36 Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other machines than the 37 one to which they are currently logged in. 38 39 The notification should appear in a separate window so it does not mess 40 up the screen. 41 42HHIISSTTOORRYY 43 The ccoommssaatt command appeared in 4.2BSD. 44 454.2 Berkeley Distribution March 16, 1991 1 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67