1.\" $OpenBSD: comsat.8,v 1.4 2001/01/28 19:34:27 niklas Exp $ 2.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 3.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 4.\" 5.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 6.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 7.\" are met: 8.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 9.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 10.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 12.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 13.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 14.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 15.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 16.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 17.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 18.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 19.\" without specific prior written permission. 20.\" 21.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 22.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 23.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 24.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 25.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 26.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 27.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 28.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 29.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 30.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 31.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 32.\" 33.\" from: @(#)comsat.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 34.\" 35.Dd June 4, 1993 36.Dt COMSAT 8 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm comsat 40.Nd biff server 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm comsat 43.Sh DESCRIPTION 44.Nm 45is the server process which receives reports of incoming mail 46and notifies users if they have requested this service. 47.Nm 48receives messages on a datagram port associated with the 49.Dq biff 50service 51specification (see 52.Xr services 5 53and 54.Xr inetd 8 ) . 55The one line messages are of the form: 56.Pp 57.Dl user@mailbox-offset 58.Pp 59If the 60.Em user 61specified is logged in to the system and the associated terminal has 62the owner execute bit turned on (by a 63.Dq Li biff y ) , 64the 65.Em offset 66is used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file and 67the first 7 lines or 560 characters of the message are printed 68on the user's terminal. 69Lines which appear to be part of the message header other than the 70.Dq From , 71.Dq \&To , 72.Dq Date , 73or 74.Dq Subject 75lines are not included in the displayed message. 76.Sh FILES 77.Bl -tag -width /var/run/utmp -compact 78.It Pa /var/run/utmp 79to find out who's logged on and on what terminals 80.El 81.Sh SEE ALSO 82.Xr biff 1 , 83.Xr inetd 8 84.Sh HISTORY 85The 86.Nm 87command appeared in 88.Bx 4.2 . 89.Sh BUGS 90The message header filtering is prone to error. 91The density of the information presented is near the theoretical minimum. 92.Pp 93Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other 94machines than the one to which they are currently logged in. 95.Pp 96The notification should appear in a separate window so it 97does not mess up the screen. 98