1MH-PROFILE(5) File Formats Manual MH-PROFILE(5)
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6 mh-profile - user customization for nmh message handler
7
9 Each user of nmh is expected to have a file named .mh-profile in their
10 home directory. This file contains a set of user parameters used by
11 the nmh family of programs. Each entry in the file is of the format
12 profile-component: value
14 If the text of a profile entry is long, you may extend it across sev‐
16 eral real lines by indenting the continuation lines with leading spaces
17 or tabs. Comments may be introduced by a line starting with `#:':
18 #: This is a comment.
20 Blank lines are not permitted in .mh-profile. Shell quoting conven‐
22 tions are not available; each token is separated by whitespace.
23 Standard Profile Entries
25 The possible profile components are exemplified below. The only manda‐
26 tory entry is `Path:'. The others are optional; some have default val‐
27 ues if they are not present. In the notation used below, (profile,
28 default) indicates whether the information is kept in the user's nmh
29 profile or nmh context, and indicates what the default value is. Note
30 that a profile component can only appear once. Multiple appearances
31 will trigger a warning that all appearances after the first are
32 ignored.
33 Some MH programs, including mhbuild, mhshow, and mhstore, have specific
35 profile components that are described in their respective man pages.
36 Each component name specific to these programs begins with the name of
37 the program and is followed by a dash.
38 Path: Mail
40 Locates nmh transactions in directory “Mail”. This is the only
41 mandatory profile entry. (profile, no default)
42 locale: locale
44 Set the locale for all nmh programs except post, install-mh, and
45 slocal. See the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG variables in the
46 "ENVIRONMENT" section below for a reference on how the locale is
47 set if this profile component is not used.
48 context: context
50 Declares the location of the nmh context file. This can be over‐
51 ridden by the environment variable MHCONTEXT. See the HISTORY
52 section below. (profile, default: <nmh-dir>/context)
53 Current-Folder: inbox
55 Keeps track of the current open folder. (context, default: folder
56 specified by “Inbox”)
57 Inbox: inbox
59 Defines the name of the default inbox. (profile, default: inbox)
60 Previous-Sequence: pseq
62 Names the sequence or sequences which should be defined as the
63 `msgs' or `msg' argument given to any nmh command. If not present
64 or empty, no such sequences are defined. Otherwise, for each name
65 given, the sequence is first zeroed and then each message is added
66 to the sequence. Read the mh-sequence(5) man page for the details
67 about this sequence. (profile, no default)
68 Sequence-Negation: not
70 Defines the string which, when prefixed to a sequence name,
71 negates that sequence. Hence, “notseen” means all those messages
72 that are not a member of the sequence “seen”. Read the
73 mh-sequence(5) man page for the details. (profile, no default)
74 Unseen-Sequence: unseen
76 Names the sequence or sequences which should be defined as those
77 messages which are unread. The commands inc, rcvstore, mhshow,
78 and show will add or remove messages from these sequences when
79 they are incorporated or read. If not present or empty, no such
80 sequences are defined. Otherwise, each message is added to, or
81 removed from, each sequence name given. Read the mh-sequence(5)
82 man page for the details about this sequence. (profile, no
83 default)
84 mh-sequences: .mh-sequences
86 The name of the file in each folder which defines public
87 sequences. To disable the use of public sequences, leave the
88 value portion of this entry blank. (profile, default:
89 .mh-sequences)
90 atr-seq-folder: 172 178-181 212
92 Keeps track of the private sequence called “seq” in the specified
93 folder. Private sequences are generally used for read-only fold‐
94 ers. See the mh-sequence(5) man page for details about private
95 sequences. (context, no default)
96 Editor: vi
98 Defines the editor to be used by the commands comp, dist, forw,
99 and repl. If not set, the value will be taken from the VISUAL and
100 EDITOR environment variables. (profile, default: vi)
101 Msg-Protect: 600
103 An octal number which defines the permission bits for new message
104 files. See chmod(1) for an explanation of the octal number. Note
105 that some filesystems, such as FAT32, do not support removal of
106 read file permissions. (profile, default: 0600)
107 Folder-Protect: 700
109 An octal number which defines the permission bits for new folder
110 directories. See chmod(1) for an explanation of the octal number.
111 (profile, default: 700)
112 datalocking: fcntl
114 The locking algorithm used to lock changes to any nmh data files,
115 such as sequences or context. The locking algorithm is any one of
116 the following entries:
117 fcntl dot flock lockf
119 Available locking algorithms can vary depending on the operating
121 system. Note: currently, transactional locking is only supported
122 on public sequences; see mh-sequence(5) for more information.
123 (profile, default: fcntl)
124 program: default switches
126 Sets default switches to be used whenever the mh program program
127 is invoked. For example, one could override the “Editor:” profile
128 component when replying to messages by adding a component such as:
129 repl: -editor /bin/ed
131 (profile, no defaults)
133 lasteditor-next: nexteditor
135 Names “nexteditor” to be the default editor after using “lastedi‐
136 tor”. This takes effect at the “What now?” prompt in comp, dist,
137 forw, and repl. After editing the draft with “lasteditor”, the
138 default editor is set to be “nexteditor”. If the user types
139 “edit” without any arguments to “What now?”, then “nexteditor” is
140 used. (profile, no default)
141 Folder-Stack: folders
143 The contents of the folder-stack for the folder command. (con‐
144 text, no default)
145 Local-Mailbox: Your Username <user@some.host>
147 Tells the MH programs what your local mailbox is. If set, it will
148 be used by the default component files by programs like comp and
149 repl to construct your default “From:” header. The text used here
150 will be copied exactly to your “From:” header, so it should
151 already be RFC 822 compliant. If this is set, the Signature pro‐
152 file entry is not used, so it should include a signature as well.
153 (profile, default: userid@local.hostname)
154 Alternate-Mailboxes: mh@uci-750a, bug-mh*
156 Tells repl and scan which additional addresses are yours. In this
157 way, repl knows which addresses should be included in the reply,
158 and scan knows if a message originated from you. Addresses must
159 be separated by a comma, and the hostnames listed should be the
160 “official” hostnames for the mailboxes you indicate, as local
161 nicknames for hosts are not replaced with their official site
162 names. For each address, if a host is not given, then that
163 address on any host is considered to be you. In addition, an
164 asterisk (`*') may appear at either or both ends of the mailbox
165 and host to indicate wild-card matching. (profile, default: your
166 user-id)
167 Aliasfile: aliases other-aliases
169 Indicates alias files for ali, whom, and send. This may be used
170 instead of the -alias file switch. (profile, no default)
171 Draft-Folder: drafts
173 Indicates a default draft folder for comp, dist, forw, refile, and
174 repl. Read the mh-draft(5) man page for details. (profile, no
175 default)
176 digest-issue-list: 1
178 Tells forw the last issue of the last volume sent for the digest
179 list. (context, no default)
180 digest-volume-list: 1
182 Tells forw the last volume sent for the digest list. (context, no
183 default)
184 MailDrop: .mail
186 Tells inc your mail drop, if different from the default. This is
187 superseded by the environment variable MAILDROP. (profile,
188 default: /var/mail/$USER)
189 Signature: RAND MH System (agent: Marshall Rose)
191 Tells front-end programs such as comp, forw, and repl your mail
192 signature. (This is not to be confused with a .signature that
193 might be appended to mails.) This is superseded by the environment
194 variable SIGNATURE. If SIGNATURE is not set and this profile
195 entry is not present, the “gcos” field of the /etc/passwd file
196 will be used. Your signature will be added to the address send
197 puts in the “From:” header; do not include an address in the sig‐
198 nature text. The “Local-Mailbox” profile component supersedes all
199 of this. (profile, no default)
200 credentials: legacy
202 Indicates how the username and password credentials will be
203 retrieved for access to external servers, such as those that pro‐
204 vide SMTP or POP service. The supported entry values are
205 “legacy”, “file:netrc”, and “file-nopermcheck:netrc”. With
206 “legacy”, or if there is no credentials entry, the username is the
207 first of:
208 1) -user switch to inc, msgchk, post, send, or whom program
210 2) the login name on the local machine
211 The password for SMTP services is the first of:
213 1) password value from matching entry in file named
215 “.netrc” in the user's home directory
216 2) password obtained by interactively prompting the user
217 The password for POP service when the -sasl switch is used with
219 one of these programs is the login name on the local machine.
220 With a “file:netrc” credentials entry, the username is the first
222 of:
223 1) -user switch to program
224 2) login name from matching entry in netrc file
225 3) value provided by user in response to interactive query
226 Similarly, the password is provided either in the netrc file or
228 interactively. netrc can be any valid filename, either absolute
229 or relative to Path or $HOME. The netrc file contains authentica‐
230 tion information, for each server, using a line of the following
231 form. (Replace myserver, mylogin, and mypassword with your own
232 account information.)
233 machine myserver login mylogin password mypassword
235 This netrc file must be owned and readable only by you.
237 The “file-nopermcheck:netrc” credentials entry is identical in
239 behavior to the “file” entry, with the exception that the permis‐
240 sion checks done by “file” are not performed. This entry should
241 be used with caution and only when absolutely necessary. (pro‐
242 file, default: legacy)
243 Welcome: disable
245 If the Welcome component is not present, or its value is not “dis‐
246 able”, a welcome message will be displayed the first time that an
247 interactive nmh program is run after updating the nmh installa‐
248 tion. The user must press the Enter key to continue.
249 If the MHCONTEXT environment variable is set and non-empty (and
251 the Welcome component is not “disable”), the welcome message is
252 only displayed if the context file contains a version reference,
253 and that reference is older than the installed nmh version. The
254 version reference is of the form:
255 Version: nmh-1.7.1
257 Process Profile Entries
259 The following profile elements are used whenever an nmh program invokes
260 some other program, such as more. The .mh-profile can be used to
261 select alternate programs if the user wishes. The default values are
262 given in the examples.
263 If the profile element contains spaces, the element is split at spaces
265 into tokens and each token is given as a separate argument to the
266 execvp(2) system call. If the element contains shell metacharacters
267 then the entire element is executed using /bin/sh.
268 buildmimeproc: /usr/bin/mhbuild
270 This is the program used by whatnow to process drafts which are
271 MIME composition files.
272 fileproc: /usr/bin/refile
274 This program is used to refile or link a message to another
275 folder. It is used by send to file a copy of a message into a
276 folder given by a “Fcc:” field. It is used by the draft folder
277 facility in comp, dist, forw, and repl to refile a draft message
278 into another folder. It is used to refile a draft message in
279 response to the refile directive at the “What now?” prompt.
280 formatproc:
282 Program called by mhl to filter a component when it is tagged with
283 the “format” variable in the mhl filter. See mhl(5) for more
284 information.
285 incproc: /usr/bin/inc
287 Program called by mhmail to incorporate new mail when it is
288 invoked with no arguments.
289 lproc: more
291 This program is used to list the contents of a message in response
292 to the list directive at the “What now?” prompt. It is also used
293 by the draft folder facility in comp, dist, forw, and repl to dis‐
294 play the draft message. (Note that the environment variable PAGER
295 supersedes the default built-in pager command.)
296 mailproc: /usr/bin/mhmail
298 This is the program used to automatically mail various messages
299 and notifications. It is used by send to post failure notices.
300 It is used to retrieve an external-body with access-type `mail-
301 server' (such as when storing the body with mhstore).
302 mhlproc: /usr/libexec/nmh/mhl
304 This is the program used to filter messages in various ways. It
305 is used by mhshow to filter and display the message headers of
306 MIME messages. When the -format or -filter option is used by forw
307 or repl, the mhlproc is used to filter the message that you are
308 forwarding, or to which you are replying. When the -filter option
309 is given to send, the mhlproc is used to filter the copy of the
310 message that is sent to “Bcc:” recipients.
311 moreproc: more
313 This is the program used by mhl to page the mhl formatted message
314 when displaying to a terminal. It is also the default program
315 used by mhshow to display message bodies (or message parts) of
316 type text/plain. (Note that the environment variable PAGER super‐
317 sedes the default built-in pager command.)
318 packproc: /usr/bin/packf
320 Currently not used.
321 postproc: /usr/libexec/nmh/post
323 This is the program used by send, mhmail, rcvdist, and viamail
324 (used by the sendfiles shell script) to post a message to the mail
325 transport system. It is also called by whom (called with the
326 switches -whom and -library) to do address verification.
327 rmmproc: none
329 This is the program used by rmm, refile, and mhfixmsg to delete a
330 message from a folder.
331 sendproc: /usr/bin/send
333 This is the program used by whatnow to actually send the message
334 showmimeproc: /usr/bin/mhshow
336 This is the program used by show to process and display non-text
337 (MIME) messages.
338 showproc: /usr/libexec/nmh/mhl
340 This is the program used by show to filter and display text (non-
341 MIME) messages.
342 whatnowproc: /usr/bin/whatnow
344 This is the program invoked by comp, dist, forw, and repl to query
345 about the disposition of a composed draft message.
346 whomproc: /usr/bin/whom
348 This is the program used by whatnow to determine to whom a message
349 would be sent.
350 Profile Lookup
352 After consulting .mh_profile, some programs read an optional profile
353 specified by a program-specific environment variable, and then the sys‐
354 tem-wide profile /etc/nmh/mhn.defaults. These programs are mhbuild,
355 mhshow, mhstore, and mhn. mhfixmsg is similar, but has no optional
356 profile.
357 The first occurrence of a component is used, e.g. .mh_profile's trumps
359 $MHSHOW's. A component with no value still stops further occurrences
360 being used, but is considered absent.
361 The .mh-profile contains only static information, which nmh programs
363 will not update. Changes in context are made to the context file kept
364 in the users nmh directory. This includes, but is not limited to: the
365 “Current-Folder” entry and all private sequence information. Public
366 sequence information is kept in each folder in the file determined by
367 the “mh-sequences” profile entry (default is .mh-sequences).
368 The .mh-profile may override the path of the context file, by specify‐
370 ing a “context” entry (this must be in lower-case). If the entry is
371 not absolute (does not start with a “/”), then it is interpreted rela‐
372 tive to the user's nmh directory. As a result, you can actually have
373 more than one set of private sequences by using different context
374 files.
375
377 The operation of nmh and its commands it also controlled by the pres‐
378 ence of certain environment variables.
379 Many of these environment variables are used internally by the “What
381 now?” interface. It's amazing all the information that has to get
382 passed via environment variables to make the “What now?” interface look
383 squeaky clean to the nmh user, isn't it? The reason for all this is
384 that the nmh user can select any program as the whatnowproc, including
385 one of the standard shells. As a result, it's not possible to pass
386 information via an argument list. The convention is that environment
387 variables whose names are all upper-case are user-settable; those whose
388 names are lower-case only are used internally by nmh and should not
389 generally be set by the user.
390 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
392 These variables are used to set the locale, see locale(1). The
393 “locale” profile entry supersedes these.
394 MAILDROP
396 This variable tells inc the default mail drop. This supersedes
397 the “MailDrop” profile entry.
398 MAILHOST
400 This variable tells inc the POP host to query for mail to incor‐
401 porate. See the inc(1) man page for more information.
402 MH With this environment variable, you can specify a profile other
404 than .mh-profile to be read by the nmh programs that you invoke.
405 If the value of MH is not absolute, (i.e., does not begin with a
406 “/”), it will be presumed to start from the current working
407 directory. This is one of the very few exceptions in nmh where
408 non-absolute pathnames are not considered relative to the user's
409 nmh directory.
410 MHBUILD
412 With this environment variable, you can specify an additional
413 user profile (file) to be read by mhbuild, in addition to the
414 mhn.defaults profile.
415 MHCONTEXT
417 With this environment variable, you can specify a context other
418 than the normal context file (as specified in the nmh profile).
419 As usual, unless the value of MHCONTEXT is absolute, it will be
420 presumed to start from your nmh directory.
421 MHLDEBUG
423 If this variable is set to a non-null value, mhl will emit
424 debugging information.
425 MHMTSCONF
427 If this variable is set to a non-null value, it specifies the
428 name of the mail transport configuration file to use by inc,
429 post, and other programs that interact with the mail transport
430 system, instead of the default. See mh-tailor(5).
431 MHMTSUSERCONF
433 If this variable is set to a non-null value, it specifies the
434 name of a mail transport configuration file to be read in addi‐
435 tion to the default. See mh-tailor(5).
436 MHN With this environment variable, you can specify an additional
438 user profile (file) to be read by mhn, in addition to the
439 mhn.defaults profile. mhn is deprecated, so support for this
440 variable will be removed from a future nmh release.
441 MHSHOW With this environment variable, you can specify an additional
443 user profile (file) to be read by mhshow, in addition to the
444 mhn.defaults profile.
445 MHSTORE
447 With this environment variable, you can specify an additional
448 user profile (file) to be read by mhstore, in addition to the
449 mhn.defaults profile.
450 MHPDEBUG
452 If this variable is set to a non-null value, pick will emit a
453 representation of the search pattern. MHPDEBUG is deprecated,
454 so support for this variable will be removed from a future nmh
455 release. Instead, pick now supports a -debug switch.
456 MHTMPDIR, TMPDIR
458 These variables are searched, in order, for the directory in
459 which to create some temporary files. MHTMPDIR is deprecated
460 and will be removed in a future release of nmh.
461 MHWDEBUG
463 If this variable is set to a non-null value, nmh commands that
464 use the Alternate-Mailboxes profile entry will display debugging
465 information about the values in that entry.
466 PAGER If set to a non-null value, this supersedes the value of the
468 default built-in pager command.
469 SIGNATURE
471 This variable tells send and post your mail signature. This
472 supersedes the “Signature” profile entry, and is not used when
473 the “Local-Mailbox” profile component is set.
474 USER This variable tells repl your user name and inc your default
476 mail drop: see the “MailDrop” profile entry.
477 USERNAME_EXTENSION
479 This variable is for use with username_extension masquerading.
480 See the mh-tailor(5) man page.
481 editalt
483 This is the alternate message. This is set by dist and repl
484 during edit sessions so you can peruse the message being dis‐
485 tributed or replied to. The message is also available, when the
486 -atfile switch is used, through a link called “@” in the current
487 directory if your current working directory and the folder the
488 message lives in are on the same Unix filesystem, and if your
489 current working directory is writable.
490 mhaltmsg
492 dist and repl set mhaltmsg to tell the whatnowproc about an
493 alternate message associated with the draft (the message being
494 distributed or replied to).
495 mhannotate
497 This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations are to occur.
498 mhdist dist sets mhdist to tell the whatnowproc that message re-distri‐
500 bution is occurring.
501 mhdraft
503 This is the path to the working draft. It is set by comp, dist,
504 forw, and repl to tell the whatnowproc which file to ask “What
505 now?” questions about.
506 mheditor
508 This is set by comp, repl, forw, and dist to tell the whatnow‐
509 proc the user's choice of editor (unless overridden by -noedit).
510 mhfolder
512 This is the folder containing the alternate message. It is set
513 by dist and repl during edit sessions so you can peruse other
514 messages in the current folder besides the one being distributed
515 or replied to. The environment variable mhfolder is also set by
516 next, prev, and show for use by mhl.
517 mhinplace
519 This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations are to occur.
520 mhmessages
522 This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations are to occur.
523 mhuse This may be set by comp.
525
527 $HOME/.mh-profile The user's profile.
528 <mh-dir>/context The user's context
529 <folder>/.mh-sequences
530 Public sequences for <folder>.
531
533 mhbuild(1), mhshow(1), mhstore(1), mh-sequence(5), nmh(7)
534
536 There is some question as to what kind of arguments should be placed in
537 the profile as options. In order to provide a clear answer, recall the
538 command line semantics of all nmh programs: conflicting switches (e.g.
539 -header and -noheader) may occur more than one time on the command
540 line, with the last switch taking effect. Other arguments, such as
541 message sequences, filenames and folders, are always remembered on the
542 invocation line and are not superseded by following arguments of the
543 same type. Hence, it is safe to place only switches (and their argu‐
544 ments) in the profile.
545 If one finds that an nmh program is being invoked again and again with
547 the same arguments, and those arguments aren't switches, then there are
548 a few possible solutions to this problem. The first is to create a
549 (soft) link in your $HOME/bin directory to the nmh program of your
550 choice. By giving this link a different name, you can create a new
551 entry in your profile and use an alternate set of defaults for the nmh
552 command. Similarly, you could create a small shell script which called
553 the nmh program of your choice with an alternate set of invocation line
554 switches (using links and an alternate profile entry is preferable to
555 this solution).
556 Finally, the csh user could create an alias for the command of the
558 form:
559 alias cmd 'cmd arg1 arg2 ...'
561 In this way, the user can avoid lengthy type-in to the shell, and still
563 give nmh commands safely. (Recall that some nmh commands invoke oth‐
564 ers, and that in all cases, the profile is read, meaning that aliases
565 are disregarded beyond an initial command invocation)
566nmh-1.7.1 2016-10-19 MH-PROFILE(5)