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mail(1)				 User Commands			       mail(1)

NAME
       mail, rmail - read mail or send mail to users

SYNOPSIS
   Sending Mail
       mail [-tw] [-m message_type] recipient...

       rmail [-tw] [-m message_type] recipient...

   Reading Mail
       mail [-ehpPqr] [-f file]

   Debugging
       mail [-x debug_level] [other_mail_options] recipient...

DESCRIPTION
       A  recipient  is	 usually  a domain style address ("user@machine") or a
       user name recognized by	login(1).  When	 recipients  are  named,  mail
       assumes a message is being sent. It reads from the standard input up to
       an end-of-file (Control-d) or, if reading from a terminal device, until
       it reads a line consisting of just a period. When either of those indi‐
       cators is received, mail adds the  letter  to  the  mailfile  for  each
       recipient.

       A letter is composed of some header lines followed by a blank line fol‐
       lowed by the message content. The header lines section  of  the	letter
       consists of one or more UNIX postmarks:

	 From sender date_and_time [remote from remote_system_name]

       followed by one or more standardized message header lines of the form:

	 keyword-name: [printable text]

       where  keyword-name is comprised of any printable, non-whitespace char‐
       acters other than colon (`:'). A MIME-version:  header  line  indicates
       that  the  message  is  formatted  as described in RFC 2045. A Content-
       Length: header line, indicating the number of bytes in the message con‐
       tent, is always present unless the letter consists of only header lines
       with no message content. A Content-Type: header line that describes the
       type  of	 the  message  content (such as text/plain, application/octet-
       stream, and so on) is also present, unless the letter consists of  only
       header  lines with no message content. Header lines may be continued on
       the following line if that line starts with white space.

OPTIONS
   Sending Mail
       The following command-line arguments affect sending mail:

       -m message_type	  A Message-Type: line is added to the message	header
			  with the value of message_type.

       -t		  A  To:  line is added to the message header for each
			  of the intended recipients.

       -w		  A letter is sent to a remote recipient without wait‐
			  ing  for  the completion of the remote transfer pro‐
			  gram.

       If a letter is found to be undeliverable, it is returned to the	sender
       with  diagnostics that indicate the location and nature of the failure.
       If mail is interrupted during input, the message is saved in  the  file
       dead.letter  to	allow  editing	and  resending.	 dead.letter is always
       appended to, thus preserving any previous contents. The initial attempt
       to  append  to  (or create) dead.letter is in the current directory. If
       this fails, dead.letter is appended to (or created in) the user's login
       directory.  If the second attempt also fails, no dead.letter processing
       is done.

       rmail only permits the sending of mail; uucp(1C) uses rmail as a	 secu‐
       rity  precaution.  Any application programs that generate mail messages
       should be sure to invoke rmail rather than mail for  message  transport
       and/or delivery.

       If  the local system has the Basic Networking Utilities installed, mail
       can be sent to a recipient on a remote system. There are numerous  ways
       to address mail to recipients on remote systems depending on the trans‐
       port mechanisms available to the local system. The two  most  prevalent
       addressing schemes are Domain-style and UUCP-style.

       Domain-style addressing	  Remote recipients are specified by appending
				  an `@' and domain (and possibly  sub-domain)
				  information  to  the recipient name (such as
				  user@sf.att.com). (The local system adminis‐
				  trator  should  be  consulted for details on
				  which addressing conventions	are  available
				  on the local system.)

       UUCP-style addressing	  Remote recipients are specified by prefixing
				  the recipient name with  the	remote	system
				  name	and  an	 exclamation  point,  such  as
				  sysa!user. If csh(1) is the  default	shell,
				  sysa\!user  should be used. A series of sys‐
				  tem names separated  by  exclamation	points
				  can  be  used	 to direct a letter through an
				  extended	 network       (such	    as
				  sysa!sysb!sysc!user			    or
				  sysa\!sysb\!sysc\!user).

   Reading Mail
       The following command-line arguments affect reading mail:

       -e	  Test for the presence of mail. mail prints nothing.

		  An exit status of 0 is returned if the user has mail. Other‐
		  wise, an exit status of 1 is returned.

       -E	  Similar to -e, but tests only for the presence of new mail.

		  An   exit   status   of  0  is  returned if the user has new
		  mail	to read,  an exit status  of  1	 is  returned  if  the
		  user	 has  no  mail,	  or  an  exit status of 2 is returned
		  if the user has mail which has already been read.

       -h	  A window of headers are initially displayed rather than  the
		  latest message. The display is followed by the ? prompt.

       -p	  All messages are printed without prompting for disposition.

       -P	  All  messages	 are  printed with all header lines displayed,
		  rather than the default selective header line display.

       -q	  mail terminates  after  interrupts.  Normally	 an  interrupt
		  causes only the termination of the message being printed.

       -r	  Messages are printed in first-in, first-out order.

       -f file	  mail	uses  file (such as mbox) instead of the default mail‐
		  file.

       mail, unless otherwise influenced by command-line arguments,  prints  a
       user's  mail messages in last-in, first-out order. The default mode for
       printing messages is to display only those header  lines	 of  immediate
       interest.  These	 include,  but	are  not limited to, the UNIX From and
       >From postmarks, From:, Date:,  Subject:,  and  Content-Length:	header
       lines,  and  any	 recipient header lines such as To:, Cc:, Bcc:, and so
       forth. After the header lines have been displayed,  mail	 displays  the
       contents (body) of the message only if it contains no unprintable char‐
       acters. Otherwise, mail issues a warning statement  about  the  message
       having binary content and not display the content. This can be overrid‐
       den by means of the p command.

       For each message, the user is prompted with a ? and a line is read from
       the  standard  input. The following commands are available to determine
       the disposition of the message:

       #		     Print the number of the current message.

       −		     Print previous message.

       <new-line>,+, or n    Print the next message.

       !command		     Escape to the shell to do command.

       a		     Print message that arrived during the  mail  ses‐
			     sion.

       d, or dp		     Delete  the  current  message  and print the next
			     message.

       d n		     Delete message number n. Do not  go  on  to  next
			     message.

       dq		     Delete message and quit mail.

       h		     Display  a	 window of headers around current mes‐
			     sage.

       hn		     Display a window of headers around message number
			     n.

       h a		     Display  headers  of  all	messages in the user's
			     mailfile.

       h d		     Display headers of messages scheduled  for	 dele‐
			     tion.

       m [ persons ]	     Mail  (and	 delete)  the  current	message to the
			     named persons.

       n		     Print message number n.

       p		     Print current message again, overriding any indi‐
			     cations of binary (that is, unprintable) content.

       P		     Override  default	brief  mode  and print current
			     message again, displaying all header lines.

       q, or Control-d	     Put undeleted mail back in the mailfile and  quit
			     mail.

       r [ users ]	     Reply to the sender, and other users, then delete
			     the message.

       s [ files ]	     Save message in the named files (mbox is default)
			     and delete the message.

       u [ n ]		     Undelete message number n (default is last read).

       w [ files ]	     Save  message contents, without any header lines,
			     in the named files (mbox is default)  and	delete
			     the message.

       x		     Put  all  mail back in the mailfile unchanged and
			     exit mail.

       y [ files ]	     Same as -w option.

       ?		     Print a command summary.

       When a user logs in, the presence of mail, if  any,  is	usually	 indi‐
       cated. Also, notification is made if new mail arrives while using mail.

       The  permissions	 of  mailfile can be manipulated using chmod(1) in two
       ways to alter the function of mail. The other permissions of  the  file
       can  be	read-write (0666), read-only (0664), or neither read nor write
       (0660) to allow different levels of privacy. If changed to  other  than
       the  default (mode 0660), the file is preserved even when empty to per‐
       petuate the desired permissions. (The administrator can	override  this
       file preservation using the DEL_EMPTY_MAILFILE option of mailcnfg.)

       The  group  ID of the mailfile must be mail to allow new messages to be
       delivered, and the mailfile must be writable by group mail.

   Debugging
       The following command-line arguments cause mail	to  provide  debugging
       information:

       -x debug_level	 mail creates a trace file containing debugging infor‐
			 mation.

       The -x option causes mail to create a file  named  /tmp/MLDBGprocess_id
       that  contains debugging information relating to how mail processed the
       current message. The absolute value of debug_level  controls  the  ver‐
       boseness	  of  the  debug  information.	0  implies  no	debugging.  If
       debug_level is greater than 0, the debug file is retained only if  mail
       encountered  some  problem while processing the message. If debug_level
       is less than 0, the debug file is always be retained.  The  debug_level
       specified   via	 -x   overrides	  any	specification	of   DEBUG  in
       /etc/mail/mailcnfg. The information provided by the -x option  is  eso‐
       teric and is probably only useful to system administrators.

   Delivery Notification
       Several	forms  of notification are available for mail by including one
       of the following lines in the message header.

       Transport-Options: [ /options ]

       Default-Options: [ /options ]

       >To: recipient [ /options ]

       Where the "/options" can be one or more of the following:

       /delivery      Inform the sender	 that  the  message  was  successfully
		      delivered to the recipient's mailbox.

       /nodelivery    Do not inform the sender of successful deliveries.

       /ignore	      Do not inform the sender of failed deliveries.

       /return	      Inform  the  sender  if  mail delivery fails. Return the
		      failed message to the sender.

       /report	      Same as /return except that the original message is  not
		      returned.

       The  default  is /nodelivery/return. If contradictory options are used,
       the first is recognized and later, conflicting, terms are ignored.

OPERANDS
       The following operand is supported for sending mail:

       recipient    A domain style address ("user@machine") or user login name
		    recognized by login(1).

USAGE
       See  largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of mail and rmail
       when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment  variables
       that affect the execution of mail: LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

       TZ    Determine the timezone used with date and time strings.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values are returned:

       0     Successful completion when the user had mail.

       1     The user had no mail or an initialization error occurred.

       >1    An error occurred after initialization.

FILES
       dead.letter	   unmailable text

       /etc/passwd	   to identify sender and locate recipients

       $HOME/mbox	   saved mail

       $MAIL		   variable containing path name of mailfile

       /tmp/MLDBG*	   debug trace file

       /var/mail/*.lock	   lock for mail directory

       /var/mail/:saved	   directory for holding temp files to prevent loss of
			   data in the event of a system crash

       /var/mail/user	   incoming mail for user; that is, the mailfile

       var/tmp/ma*	   temporary file

ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
       │      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     │	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Availability		     │SUNWcs			   │
       └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

SEE ALSO
       chmod(1), csh(1), login(1),  mailx(1),  uucp(1C),  uuencode(1C),	 vaca‐
       tion(1), write(1), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5)

       Solaris Advanced User's Guide

NOTES
       The  interpretation  and	 resulting  action taken because of the header
       lines described in the Delivery Notifications  section  only  occur  if
       this  version of mail is installed on the system where the delivery (or
       failure) happens. Earlier versions of mail might not support any	 types
       of delivery notification.

       Conditions sometimes result in a failure to remove a lock file.

       After an interrupt, the next message might not be printed. Printing can
       be forced by typing a p.

SunOS 5.11			  24 Jul 2008			       mail(1)
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