COMSAT(8) BSD System Manager's Manual COMSAT(8) NNAAMMEE ccoommssaatt - biff server SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS ccoommssaatt DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN CCoommssaatt is the server process which receives reports of incoming mail and notifies users if they have requested this service. CCoommssaatt receives mes- sages on a datagram port associated with the ``biff'' service specifica- tion (see services(5) and inetd(8)). The one line messages are of the form: user@mailbox-offset If the _u_s_e_r specified is logged in to the system and the associated ter- minal has the owner execute bit turned on (by a ``biff y''), the _o_f_f_s_e_t 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 termi- nal. 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. FFIILLEESS /var/run/utmp to find out who's logged on and on what terminals SSEEEE AALLSSOO biff(1), inetd(8) BBUUGGSS The message header filtering is prone to error. The density of the in- formation presented is near the theoretical minimum. Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other machines than the one to which they are currently logged in. The notification should appear in a separate window so it does not mess up the screen. HHIISSTTOORRYY The ccoommssaatt command appeared in 4.2BSD. 4.2 Berkeley Distribution June 4, 1993 1