1.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)comsat.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 06/04/93 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt COMSAT 8 10.Os BSD 4.2 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm comsat 13.Nd biff server 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Nm comsat 16.Sh DESCRIPTION 17.Nm Comsat 18is the server process which receives reports of incoming mail 19and notifies users if they have requested this service. 20.Nm Comsat 21receives messages on a datagram port associated with the 22.Dq biff 23service 24specification (see 25.Xr services 5 26and 27.Xr inetd 8 ) . 28The one line messages are of the form: 29.Pp 30.Dl user@mailbox-offset 31.Pp 32If the 33.Em user 34specified is logged in to the system and the associated terminal has 35the owner execute bit turned on (by a 36.Dq Li biff y ) , 37the 38.Em offset 39is used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file and 40the first 7 lines or 560 characters of the message are printed 41on the user's terminal. Lines which appear to be part of 42the message header other than the 43.Dq From , 44.Dq \&To , 45.Dq Date , 46or 47.Dq Subject 48lines are not included in the displayed message. 49.Sh FILES 50.Bl -tag -width /var/run/utmp -compact 51.It Pa /var/run/utmp 52to find out who's logged on and on what terminals 53.El 54.Sh SEE ALSO 55.Xr biff 1 , 56.Xr inetd 8 57.Sh BUGS 58The message header filtering is prone to error. 59The density of the information presented is near the theoretical minimum. 60.Pp 61Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other 62machines than the one to which they are currently logged in. 63.Pp 64The notification should appear in a separate window so it 65does not mess up the screen. 66.Sh HISTORY 67The 68.Nm 69command appeared in 70.Bx 4.2 . 71