1mail(1) User Commands mail(1)
2
6 mail, rmail - read mail or send mail to users
7
9 Sending Mail
10 mail [-tw] [-m message_type] recipient...
11 rmail [-tw] [-m message_type] recipient...
14 Reading Mail
17 mail [-ehpPqr] [-f file]
18 Debugging
21 mail [-x debug_level] [other_mail_options] recipient...
22
25 A recipient is usually a domain style address ("user@machine") or a
26 user name recognized by login(1). When recipients are named, mail
27 assumes a message is being sent. It reads from the standard input up to
28 an end-of-file (Control-d) or, if reading from a terminal device, until
29 it reads a line consisting of just a period. When either of those indi‐
30 cators is received, mail adds the letter to the mailfile for each
31 recipient.
32 A letter is composed of some header lines followed by a blank line fol‐
35 lowed by the message content. The header lines section of the letter
36 consists of one or more UNIX postmarks:
37 From sender date_and_time [remote from remote_system_name]
39 followed by one or more standardized message header lines of the form:
44 keyword-name: [printable text]
46 where keyword-name is comprised of any printable, non-whitespace char‐
51 acters other than colon (`:'). A MIME-version: header line indicates
52 that the message is formatted as described in RFC 2045. A Content-
53 Length: header line, indicating the number of bytes in the message con‐
54 tent, is always present unless the letter consists of only header lines
55 with no message content. A Content-Type: header line that describes the
56 type of the message content (such as text/plain, application/octet-
57 stream, and so on) is also present, unless the letter consists of only
58 header lines with no message content. Header lines may be continued on
59 the following line if that line starts with white space.
60
62 Sending Mail
63 The following command-line arguments affect sending mail:
64 -m message_type A Message-Type: line is added to the message header
66 with the value of message_type.
67 -t A To: line is added to the message header for each
70 of the intended recipients.
71 -w A letter is sent to a remote recipient without wait‐
74 ing for the completion of the remote transfer pro‐
75 gram.
76 If a letter is found to be undeliverable, it is returned to the sender
80 with diagnostics that indicate the location and nature of the failure.
81 If mail is interrupted during input, the message is saved in the file
82 dead.letter to allow editing and resending. dead.letter is always
83 appended to, thus preserving any previous contents. The initial attempt
84 to append to (or create) dead.letter is in the current directory. If
85 this fails, dead.letter is appended to (or created in) the user's login
86 directory. If the second attempt also fails, no dead.letter processing
87 is done.
88 rmail only permits the sending of mail; uucp(1C) uses rmail as a secu‐
91 rity precaution. Any application programs that generate mail messages
92 should be sure to invoke rmail rather than mail for message transport
93 and/or delivery.
94 If the local system has the Basic Networking Utilities installed, mail
97 can be sent to a recipient on a remote system. There are numerous ways
98 to address mail to recipients on remote systems depending on the trans‐
99 port mechanisms available to the local system. The two most prevalent
100 addressing schemes are Domain-style and UUCP-style.
101 Domain-style addressing Remote recipients are specified by appending
103 an `@' and domain (and possibly sub-domain)
104 information to the recipient name (such as
105 user@sf.att.com). (The local system adminis‐
106 trator should be consulted for details on
107 which addressing conventions are available
108 on the local system.)
109 UUCP-style addressing Remote recipients are specified by prefixing
112 the recipient name with the remote system
113 name and an exclamation point, such as
114 sysa!user. If csh(1) is the default shell,
115 sysa\!user should be used. A series of sys‐
116 tem names separated by exclamation points
117 can be used to direct a letter through an
118 extended network (such as
119 sysa!sysb!sysc!user or
120 sysa\!sysb\!sysc\!user).
121 Reading Mail
124 The following command-line arguments affect reading mail:
125 -e Test for the presence of mail. mail prints nothing.
127 An exit status of 0 is returned if the user has mail. Other‐
129 wise, an exit status of 1 is returned.
130 -E Similar to -e, but tests only for the presence of new mail.
133 An exit status of 0 is returned if the user has new
135 mail to read, an exit status of 1 is returned if the
136 user has no mail, or an exit status of 2 is returned
137 if the user has mail which has already been read.
138 -h A window of headers are initially displayed rather than the
141 latest message. The display is followed by the ? prompt.
142 -p All messages are printed without prompting for disposition.
145 -P All messages are printed with all header lines displayed,
148 rather than the default selective header line display.
149 -q mail terminates after interrupts. Normally an interrupt
152 causes only the termination of the message being printed.
153 -r Messages are printed in first-in, first-out order.
156 -f file mail uses file (such as mbox) instead of the default mail‐
159 file.
160 mail, unless otherwise influenced by command-line arguments, prints a
164 user's mail messages in last-in, first-out order. The default mode for
165 printing messages is to display only those header lines of immediate
166 interest. These include, but are not limited to, the UNIX From and
167 >From postmarks, From:, Date:, Subject:, and Content-Length: header
168 lines, and any recipient header lines such as To:, Cc:, Bcc:, and so
169 forth. After the header lines have been displayed, mail displays the
170 contents (body) of the message only if it contains no unprintable char‐
171 acters. Otherwise, mail issues a warning statement about the message
172 having binary content and not display the content. This can be overrid‐
173 den by means of the p command.
174 For each message, the user is prompted with a ? and a line is read from
177 the standard input. The following commands are available to determine
178 the disposition of the message:
179 # Print the number of the current message.
181 − Print previous message.
184 <new-line>,+, or n Print the next message.
187 !command Escape to the shell to do command.
190 a Print message that arrived during the mail ses‐
193 sion.
194 d, or dp Delete the current message and print the next
197 message.
198 d n Delete message number n. Do not go on to next
201 message.
202 dq Delete message and quit mail.
205 h Display a window of headers around current mes‐
208 sage.
209 hn Display a window of headers around message number
212 n.
213 h a Display headers of all messages in the user's
216 mailfile.
217 h d Display headers of messages scheduled for dele‐
220 tion.
221 m [ persons ] Mail (and delete) the current message to the
224 named persons.
225 n Print message number n.
228 p Print current message again, overriding any indi‐
231 cations of binary (that is, unprintable) content.
232 P Override default brief mode and print current
235 message again, displaying all header lines.
236 q, or Control-d Put undeleted mail back in the mailfile and quit
239 mail.
240 r [ users ] Reply to the sender, and other users, then delete
243 the message.
244 s [ files ] Save message in the named files (mbox is default)
247 and delete the message.
248 u [ n ] Undelete message number n (default is last read).
251 w [ files ] Save message contents, without any header lines,
254 in the named files (mbox is default) and delete
255 the message.
256 x Put all mail back in the mailfile unchanged and
259 exit mail.
260 y [ files ] Same as -w option.
263 ? Print a command summary.
266 When a user logs in, the presence of mail, if any, is usually indi‐
270 cated. Also, notification is made if new mail arrives while using mail.
271 The permissions of mailfile can be manipulated using chmod(1) in two
274 ways to alter the function of mail. The other permissions of the file
275 can be read-write (0666), read-only (0664), or neither read nor write
276 (0660) to allow different levels of privacy. If changed to other than
277 the default (mode 0660), the file is preserved even when empty to per‐
278 petuate the desired permissions. (The administrator can override this
279 file preservation using the DEL_EMPTY_MAILFILE option of mailcnfg.)
280 The group ID of the mailfile must be mail to allow new messages to be
283 delivered, and the mailfile must be writable by group mail.
284 Debugging
286 The following command-line arguments cause mail to provide debugging
287 information:
288 -x debug_level mail creates a trace file containing debugging infor‐
290 mation.
291 The -x option causes mail to create a file named /tmp/MLDBGprocess_id
295 that contains debugging information relating to how mail processed the
296 current message. The absolute value of debug_level controls the ver‐
297 boseness of the debug information. 0 implies no debugging. If
298 debug_level is greater than 0, the debug file is retained only if mail
299 encountered some problem while processing the message. If debug_level
300 is less than 0, the debug file is always be retained. The debug_level
301 specified via -x overrides any specification of DEBUG in
302 /etc/mail/mailcnfg. The information provided by the -x option is eso‐
303 teric and is probably only useful to system administrators.
304 Delivery Notification
306 Several forms of notification are available for mail by including one
307 of the following lines in the message header.
308 Transport-Options: [ /options ]
311 Default-Options: [ /options ]
314 >To: recipient [ /options ]
317 Where the "/options" can be one or more of the following:
320 /delivery Inform the sender that the message was successfully
322 delivered to the recipient's mailbox.
323 /nodelivery Do not inform the sender of successful deliveries.
326 /ignore Do not inform the sender of failed deliveries.
329 /return Inform the sender if mail delivery fails. Return the
332 failed message to the sender.
333 /report Same as /return except that the original message is not
336 returned.
337 The default is /nodelivery/return. If contradictory options are used,
341 the first is recognized and later, conflicting, terms are ignored.
342
344 The following operand is supported for sending mail:
345 recipient A domain style address ("user@machine") or user login name
347 recognized by login(1).
348
351 See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of mail and rmail
352 when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).
353
355 See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
356 that affect the execution of mail: LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
357 TZ Determine the timezone used with date and time strings.
359
362 The following exit values are returned:
363 0 Successful completion when the user had mail.
365 1 The user had no mail or an initialization error occurred.
368 >1 An error occurred after initialization.
371
374 dead.letter unmailable text
375 /etc/passwd to identify sender and locate recipients
378 $HOME/mbox saved mail
381 $MAIL variable containing path name of mailfile
384 /tmp/MLDBG* debug trace file
387 /var/mail/*.lock lock for mail directory
390 /var/mail/:saved directory for holding temp files to prevent loss of
393 data in the event of a system crash
394 /var/mail/user incoming mail for user; that is, the mailfile
397 var/tmp/ma* temporary file
400
403 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
404 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
409 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
410 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
411 │Availability │SUNWcsu │
412 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
413
415 chmod(1), csh(1), login(1), mailx(1), uucp(1C), uuencode(1C), vaca‐
416 tion(1), write(1), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5)
417 Solaris Advanced User's Guide
420
422 The interpretation and resulting action taken because of the header
423 lines described in the Delivery Notifications section only occur if
424 this version of mail is installed on the system where the delivery (or
425 failure) happens. Earlier versions of mail might not support any types
426 of delivery notification.
427 Conditions sometimes result in a failure to remove a lock file.
430 After an interrupt, the next message might not be printed. Printing can
433 be forced by typing a p.
434SunOS 5.11 24 Jul 2008 mail(1)