1.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)comsat.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 33.\" $FreeBSD: src/libexec/comsat/comsat.8,v 1.14 2005/02/13 23:45:48 ru Exp $ 34.\" $DragonFly: src/libexec/comsat/comsat.8,v 1.3 2006/02/17 19:33:31 swildner Exp $ 35.\" 36.Dd August 9, 2002 37.Dt COMSAT 8 38.Os 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm comsat 41.Nd biff server 42.Sh SYNOPSIS 43.Nm 44.Sh DESCRIPTION 45The 46.Nm 47utility is the server process which receives reports of incoming mail 48and notifies users if they have requested this service. 49The 50.Nm 51utility receives messages on a datagram port associated with the 52.Dq biff 53service 54specification (see 55.Xr services 5 56and 57.Xr inetd 8 ) . 58The one line messages are of the form: 59.Pp 60.D1 Ar user Ns @ Ns Ar mailbox Ns - Ns Ar offset Ns Op : Ns Ar mailbox-name 61.Pp 62If the 63.Ar user 64specified is logged in to the system and the associated terminal has 65the owner execute bit turned on (by a 66.Dq Nm biff Cm y ) , 67the 68.Ar offset 69is used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file and 70the first 7 lines or 560 characters of the message are printed 71on the user's terminal. 72Lines which appear to be part of 73the message header other than the 74.Dq Li From , 75.Dq Li \&To , 76.Dq Li Date , 77or 78.Dq Li Subject 79lines are not included in the displayed message. 80.Pp 81If the 82.Ar user 83specified is logged in to the system and the associated terminal has 84the group execute bit turned on (by a 85.Dq Nm biff Cm b ) , 86two bell characters 87.Tn ( ASCII 88\\007) are printed on the user's terminal. 89.Pp 90If 91.Ar mailbox-name 92omitted, standard mailbox assumed. 93.Sh FILES 94.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /var/mail/user" -compact 95.It Pa /var/run/utmp 96to find out who is logged on and on what terminals 97.It Pa /var/mail/user 98standard mailbox 99.El 100.Sh SEE ALSO 101.Xr biff 1 , 102.Xr inetd 8 103.Sh HISTORY 104The 105.Nm 106utility appeared in 107.Bx 4.2 . 108.Sh BUGS 109The message header filtering is prone to error. 110The density of the information presented is near the theoretical minimum. 111.Pp 112Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other 113machines than the one to which they are currently logged in. 114.Pp 115The notification should appear in a separate window so it 116does not mess up the screen. 117