comsat(8c)comsat(8c)Name
comsat - biff server
Syntax
/etc/comsat
Description
The command is the server process which receives reports of incoming
mail and notifies users if they have requested this service. The com‐
mand is invoked by when it detects an incoming packet on the datagram
port associated with the ``biff'' service specification. For further
information, see The command reads the packet, which is a one line mes‐
sage of the form:
user@mailbox-offset
If the user specified is logged in to the system and the associated
terminal has the owner execute bit turned on (by a ``biff y''), the
offset is used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file and
the first 7 lines or 560 characters of the message are printed on the
user's terminal. Lines which appear to be part of the message header
other than the From:, To:, Date:, or Subject: lines are not included in
the displayed message.
Restrictions
The message header filtering is prone to error.
Files
Information about who is logged on to which terminals
See Alsobiff(1), inetd(8c)comsat(8c)