1        Cone©
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3CONE(1)                 Cone: COnsole Newsreader And E                 CONE(1)
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NAME

8       cone - Read and send E-mail messages
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SYNOPSIS

11       cone [-r] [-c directory]
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USAGE

14       Cone is a console newsreader and E-mail. It is an interactive program
15       for reading and sending E-mail messages.  Cone is designed to be
16       intuitive and easy to learn. Starting Cone for the first time displays
17       two links: one for the default system mailbox, and a second link to a
18       quick online tutorial. The online tutorial provides a brief overview of
19       using Cone for reading and sending E-mail.
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21       Pressing Q on most screens exits Cone.  Cone tries to gracefully log
22       out and shut down all server connections. If Cone cannot log out of a
23       remote server because the remote server is down, press CTRL-C (after Q
24       to terminate Cone).
25
26       Use CTRL-Z to temporarily suspend Cone and drop back to the shell
27       prompt.  Cone remains suspended in the background, and may be restarted
28       by using the shell's fg command.
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30           Note
31           Connections to remote mail servers may be disconnected for
32           inactivity if Cone remains suspended for a prolonged period of
33           time. When suspended, Cone cannot maintain any active connections
34           to remote mail servers.
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36       The -c option names a directory where Cone saves its configuration
37       files, and defaults to $HOME/.cone. The configuration directory will be
38       created, if necessary.
39
40       The -r option recovers a backup copy of Cone's configuration file. This
41       option is primarily used when remote configuration is enabled, but the
42       folder that contains Cone's configuration on a remote server was
43       deleted, or is not available. In all cases, Cone makes a daily local
44       configuration file backup. The -r option searches for local
45       configuration file backups, and offers an option to restore the backup
46       copy.
47
48   Reading local mail with Cone
49       Cone reads local mail from either maildirs (the preferred format) or
50       mailbox files (or "mboxes"). When mboxes are used, Cone does not read
51       the system mailbox file directly (usually /var/spool/something). All
52       messages in the system mailbox are automatically moved to $HOME/Inbox,
53       which is then accessed as if it was the system mailbox. Starting Cone
54       for the first time on an mbox-based system automatically copies all
55       existing mail from the system mailbox file to $HOME/Inbox.
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57       This is an intentional design choice. Normal user application cannot
58       create new files in /var/spool; all they can do is read the mailbox
59       file from /var/spool. Therefore, the only way to update the mailbox
60       file is by rewriting it from scratch (more or less). While the mailbox
61       file is in the process of being rewritten, if the Cone process is
62       interrupted, or killed, the resulted in a corrupted system mailbox.
63       There are way to minimize this vulnerability, but it cannot be
64       eliminated completely. Some Linux kernels use an “OOM killer” that may
65       terminate any process when the system memory is low. There is no way to
66       completely prevent corrupted system mailbox files on those kernels.
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68       Cone uses an alternative way of updating mboxes.  Cone updates mboxes
69       by creating a new mbox file separately, then replacing the original
70       mbox file with the new version. Unfortunately this cannot be done with
71       the system mailbox file, because of the restricted access rights on the
72       system spool directory. To solve this problem Cone automatically copies
73       the system mailbox file to $HOME/Inbox, each time the system mailbox
74       file is opened and whenever new mail is available.
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76   Viewing MIME attachments
77       Cone displays text and simple HTML content by itself. Other kinds of
78       attachments may be viewed by using a helper script.  Cone invokes a
79       helper script to open a MIME attachment. The helper script's name is
80TYPE.SUBTYPE.filter”, where “TYPE” and “SUBTYPE” corresponds to the
81       MIME type and subtype, accordingly.  Cone looks for helper scripts in
82       $HOME/.cone (or the directory specified by -c) and in /usr/share/cone.
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84       For example, a helper script named “IMAGE.GIF.filter”, if installed, is
85       invoked to process image/gif MIME attachments.
86
87       Helper scripts
88           Cone runs each helper script twice:
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90               TYPE.SUBTYPE.filter check type/subtype
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92           When the first argument is “check”, the helper script should
93           terminate with a zero exit code if it is willing to process an
94           attachment whose MIME type is specified by the second argument. A
95           script or a program that's has multiple “TYPE.SUBTYPE.filter” links
96           may use the second argument to identify the attachment's mime type.
97           If the helper script is unable to process the attachment, at this
98           time, it should terminate with a non-zero exit code.
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100           The default helper script for image attachments terminates with a
101           non-zero exit code if the DISPLAY environment variable is not
102           initialized. When invoked from an X-Windows terminal, image
103           attachments will be automatically displayed; and image attachments
104           are ignored otherwise on non-graphical consoles.
105
106               TYPE.SUBTYPE.filter filter type/subtype filename
107
108           If the helper script initially terminates with a zero exit code, it
109           will be invoked again after the MIME attachment is downloaded and
110           decoded. The first argument will be “filter”, and the attachment's
111           filename is specified by the third argument.
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113               Note
114               This is a temporary file, whose extension will not necessary be
115               the file extension associated with this MIME type.
116
117           The helper script should read and process the file specified by the
118           third argument.  Cone interprets anything the helper script writes
119           to standard output as HTML.
120
121               Note
122               Cone waits until the helper script terminates before displaying
123               the rest of the message. Most helper scripts should run in the
124               background. However, note that Cone removes the temporary file
125               when the original message is closed; the temporary file may be
126               removed any time after the helper script terminates. The helper
127               script should make its own private copy of the file, if
128               necessary.
129
130   Activating URLs
131       Cone has limited ability to activate URLs in HTML messages.  Cone
132       handles “mailto:”URLs by itself. For other URLs Cone runs
133       /usr/share/cone/method.handler with the URL passed as an argument.
134
135       Cone installs http.handler (hard linked to https.handler). This script
136       checks if firefox or mozilla binaries are found in the current PATH,
137       and runs them.
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139           Note
140           Cone also looks method.handler in $HOME/.cone (or the directory
141           specified by -c) in addition to /usr/share/cone.
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FILES

144       $HOME/.cone
145           Configuration files, and other application data. May be modified by
146           the -c option.
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148       /usr/share/cone/IMAGE.GIF.filter, /usr/share/cone/IMAGE.JPEG.filter,
149       /usr/share/cone/IMAGE.PNG.filter,
150       /usr/share/cone/APPLICATION.PDF.filter
151           Default helper scripts distributed with Cone.
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SEE ALSO

154       mailtool(1), sendmail(8).
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AUTHOR

157       Sam Varshavchik
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161Cone©                             08/25/2016                           CONE(1)
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