1.\" $NetBSD: comsat.8,v 1.9 2002/01/15 02:19:36 wiz Exp $ 2.\" 3.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 4.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 5.\" 6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 8.\" are met: 9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 13.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 14.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 15.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 16.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 17.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 18.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 19.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 20.\" without specific prior written permission. 21.\" 22.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 23.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 24.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 25.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 26.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 27.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 28.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 29.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 30.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 31.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 32.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 33.\" 34.\" from: @(#)comsat.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 35.\" 36.Dd June 4, 1993 37.Dt COMSAT 8 38.Os 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm comsat 41.Nd biff server 42.Sh SYNOPSIS 43.Nm 44.Op Fl l 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46.Nm 47is the server process which receives reports of incoming mail 48and notifies users if they have requested this service. 49.Nm 50receives messages on a datagram port associated with the 51.Dq biff 52service 53specification (see 54.Xr services 5 55and 56.Xr inetd 8 ) . 57The one line messages are of the form: 58.Pp 59.Dl user@mailbox-offset 60.Pp 61If the 62.Em user 63specified is logged in to the system and the associated terminal has 64the owner execute bit turned on (by a 65.Dq Li biff y ) , 66the 67.Em offset 68is used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file and 69the first 7 lines or 560 characters of the message are printed 70on the user's terminal. Lines which appear to be part of 71the message header other than the 72.Dq From , 73.Dq \&To , 74.Dq Date , 75or 76.Dq Subject 77lines are not included in the displayed message. 78.Sh OPTIONS 79The 80.Nm 81program supports this option: 82.Bl -tag -width 12345 83.It Fl l 84The 85.Fl l 86option turns on 87.Xr syslogd 8 88log messages. 89.El 90.Sh FILES 91.Bl -tag -width /var/run/utmp -compact 92.It Pa /var/run/utmp 93to find out who's logged on and on what terminals 94.El 95.Sh SEE ALSO 96.Xr biff 1 , 97.Xr inetd 8 , 98.Xr syslogd 8 99.Sh HISTORY 100The 101.Nm 102command appeared in 103.Bx 4.2 . 104.Sh BUGS 105The message header filtering is prone to error. 106The density of the information presented is near the theoretical minimum. 107.Pp 108Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other 109machines than the one to which they are currently logged in. 110.Pp 111The notification should appear in a separate window so it 112does not mess up the screen. 113.Pp 114.Nm 115runs as root so that it can open the users maildrop. 116