2.9BSD/usr/man/cat8/delivermail.8
DELIVERMAIL(8) UNIX Programmer's Manual DELIVERMAIL(8)
NAME
delivermail - deliver mail to arbitrary people
SYNOPSIS
/etc/delivermail [ -[fr] _a_d_d_r_e_s_s ] [ -a ] [ -e_x ] [ -n ] [
-m ] [ -s ] [ -i ] [ -h _N ] address ...
DESCRIPTION
_D_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l delivers a letter to one or more people, routing
the letter over whatever networks are necessary. _D_e_l_i_v_e_r_-
_m_a_i_l will do inter-net forwarding as necessary to deliver
the mail to the correct place.
_D_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l is not intended as a user interface routine; it
is expected that other programs will provide user-friendly
front ends, and _d_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l will be used only to deliver
pre-formatted messages.
_D_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l reads its standard input up to a control-D or a
line with a single dot and sends a copy of the letter found
there to all of the addresses listed. If the -i flag is
given, single dots are ignored. It determines the network
to use based on the syntax of the addresses. Addresses con-
taining the character `@' or the word at are sent to the
ARPANET; addresses containing `!' are sent to the UUCP net,
and addresses containing `:' or `.' are sent to the Berkeley
network. Other addresses are assumed to be local.
Local addresses are looked up in a file constructed by
_n_e_w_a_l_i_a_s_e_s(1) from the data file /_u_s_r/_l_i_b/_a_l_i_a_s_e_s and
aliased appropriately. Aliasing can be prevented by preced-
ing the address with a backslash or using the -n flag. Nor-
mally the sender is not included in any alias expansions,
e.g., if `john' sends to `group', and `group' includes
`john' in the expansion, then the letter will not be
delivered to `john'. The -m flag disables this suppression.
_D_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l computes the person sending the mail by looking
at your login name. The from person can be explicitly
specified by using the -f flag; or, if the -a flag is given,
delivermail looks in the body of the message for a From: or
Sender: field in ARPANET format. The -f and -a flags can be
used only by the special users _r_o_o_t and _n_e_t_w_o_r_k, or if the
person you are trying to become is the same as the person
you are. The -r flag is entirely equivalent to the -f flag;
it is provided for ease of interface only.
The -e_x flag controls the disposition of error output, as
follows:
e Print errors on the standard output, and echo a copy of
the message when done. It is assumed that a network
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DELIVERMAIL(8) UNIX Programmer's Manual DELIVERMAIL(8)
server will return the message back to the user.
m Mail errors back to the user.
p Print errors on the standard output.
q Throw errors away; only exit status is returned.
w Write errors back to the user's terminal, but only if the
user is still logged in and write permission is enabled;
otherwise errors are mailed back.
If the error is not mailed back, and if the mail originated
on the machine where the error occurred, the letter is
appended to the file _d_e_a_d._l_e_t_t_e_r in the sender's home direc-
tory.
If the first character of the user name is a vertical bar,
the rest of the user name is used as the name of a program
to pipe the mail to. It may be necessary to quote the name
of the user to keep _d_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l from suppressing the blanks
from between arguments.
The message is normally edited to eliminate From lines that
might confuse other mailers. In particular, From lines in
the header are deleted, and From lines in the body are
prepended by `>'. The -s flag saves From lines in the
header.
The -h flag gives a hop-count, i.e., a measure of how many
times this message has been processed by _d_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l
(presumably on different machines). Each time _d_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l
processes a message, it increases the hop-count by one; if
it exceeds 30 _d_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l assumes that an alias loop has
occurred and it aborts the message. The hop-count defaults
to zero.
_D_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l returns an exit status describing what it did.
The codes are defined in <sysexits.h>
EX_OK Successful completion on all addresses.
EX_NOUSER User name not recognized.
EX_UNAVAILABLE Catchall meaning necessary resources
were not available.
EX_SYNTAX Syntax error in address.
EX_SOFTWARE Internal software error, including bad
arguments.
EX_OSERR Temporary operating system error, such
as cannot fork.
EX_NOHOST Host name not recognized.
FILES
/usr/lib/aliases raw data for alias names
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DELIVERMAIL(8) UNIX Programmer's Manual DELIVERMAIL(8)
/usr/lib/aliases.dir data base of alias names
/usr/lib/aliases.pag
/bin/mail to deliver uucp mail
/usr/net/bin/v6mail to deliver local mail
/usr/net/bin/sendmail to deliver Berknet mail
/usr/lib/mailers/arpa to deliver ARPANET mail
/tmp/mail* temp file
/tmp/xscript* saved transcript
SEE ALSO
Mail(1), mail(1), newaliases(1), aliases(5), sysexits(5)
BUGS
_D_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l sends one copy of the letter to each user; it
should send one copy of the letter to each host and distri-
bute to multiple users there whenever possible.
_D_e_l_i_v_e_r_m_a_i_l assumes the addresses can be represented as one
word. This is incorrect according to the ARPANET mail pro-
tocol RFC 733 (NIC 41952), but is consistent with the real
world.
It isn't _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l (this may be a feature).
Printed 8/2/83 3