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@(#)vacation.1 6.6 (Berkeley) 07/09/88

C 6 vacation - return ``I am not here'' indication vacation -i

vacation [ -a alias ] login

Vacation returns a message to the sender of a message telling them that you are currently not reading your mail. The intended use is in a .forward file. For example, your .forward file might have:

\eeric, "|/usr/ucb/vacation -a allman eric"

which would send messages to you (assuming your login name was eric) and reply to any messages for ``eric'' or ``allman''.

No message will be sent unless login or an alias supplied using the -a option is a substring of either the ``To:'' or ``Cc:'' headers of the mail. No messages from ``???-REQUEST'', ``Postmaster'', ``UUCP'', ``MAILER'', or ``MAILER-DAEMON'' will be replied to, nor is a notification sent if a ``Precedence: bulk'' or ``Precedence: junk'' line is included in the mail headers. Only one message per week will be sent to each unique sender. The people who have sent you messages are maintained as an ndbm(3) database in the files .vacation.pag and .vacation.dir in your home directory.

The -i flag initializes the vacation database files. It should be used before you modify your .forward file.

Vacation expects a file .vacation.msg, in your home directory, containing a message to be sent back to each sender. It should be an entire message (including headers). For example, it might say:

From: eric@ucbmonet.Berkeley.EDU (Eric Allman)
Subject: I am on vacation
Delivered-By-The-Graces-Of: The Vacation program
Precedence: bulk

I am on vacation until July 22. If you have something urgent,
please contact Joe Kalash <kalash@ucbingres.Berkeley.EDU>.
 --eric

Vacation reads the first line from the standard input for a \s-1UNIX\s0-style ``From'' line to determine the sender. Sendmail(8) includes this ``From'' line automatically.

Fatal errors, such as calling vacation with incorrect arguments, or with non-existent logins, are logged in the system log file, using syslog(8).

~/.vacation.dir database file
~/.vacation.msg message to send
~/.vacation.pag database file

sendmail(8), syslog(8)