Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
MAIL.LOCAL(8)		    System Manager's Manual		 MAIL.LOCAL(8)

NAME
       mail.local - store mail in a mailbox

SYNOPSIS
       mail.local  [-7]	 [-b]  [-B] [-d] [-D mbdb] [-l]	[-s] [-f from|-r from]
       [-h filename ] user ...

DESCRIPTION
       Mail.local reads	the standard input up to an end-of-file	and appends it
       to each user's mail file.  The user must	be a valid user	name.

       The options are as follows:

       -7	 Do not	advertise 8BITMIME support in LMTP mode.

       -B	 Turn off the attempts to notify the service.

       -b	 Return	a permanent error instead of a temporary  error	 if  a
		 mailbox exceeds quota.

       -d	 Specify  this	is  a  delivery	 (for backward compatibility).
		 This option has no effect.

       -D mbdb	 Specify the name of the mailbox database  which  is  used  to
		 look up local recipient names.	 This option defaults to "pw",
		 which means use getpwnam().

       -f from	 Specify the sender's name.

       -l	 Turn on LMTP mode.

       -s	 Turn  off the call that forces	the mailbox to be committed to
		 disk before returning a status.

       -r from	 Specify the sender's name (for	backward compatibility).  Same
		 as -f.

       -h filename
		 Store incoming	mail in	filename in the	user's home  directory
		 instead of a system mail spool	directory.

       The  next  options  are	only available if mail.local has been compiled
       with -DHASHSPOOL.

       -H hashtypehashdepth
	      Select hashed mail directories.  Valid hash types	are u for user
	      name and m for MD5 (requires compilation	with  -DHASHSPOOLMD5).
	      Example: -H u2 selects user name hashing with a hash depth of 2.
	      Note:  there  must  be  no  space	 between the hash type and the
	      depth.

       -p path
	      Specify an alternate mail	spool path.

       -n     Specify that the domain part of recipient	addresses in LMTP mode
	      should not be stripped.

       Individual mail messages	in the mailbox are delimited by	an empty  line
       followed	 by  a	line beginning with the	string ``From ''.  A line con-
       taining the string ``From '', the sender's name and  a  time  stamp  is
       prepended  to each delivered mail message.  A blank line	is appended to
       each message.  A	greater-than character (``>'')	is  prepended  to  any
       line  in	 the message which could be mistaken for a ``From '' delimiter
       line (that is, a	line beginning with the	five characters	``From '' fol-
       lowing a	blank line).

       The mail	files are exclusively locked with flock(2) while mail  is  ap-
       pended,	and  a	user.lock  file	 also  is created while	the mailbox is
       locked for compatibility	with older MUAs.

       If the ``biff'' service	is  returned  by  getservbyname(3),  the  biff
       server is notified of delivered mail.

       The mail.local utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

ENVIRONMENT
       TZ     Used to set the appropriate time zone on the timestamp.

FILES
       /var/tmp/local.XXXXXX temporary files
       /var/mail/user	     user's default mailbox directory
       /var/mail/user.lock   lock file for a user's default mailbox

SEE ALSO
       mail(1),	flock(2), getservbyname(3), comsat(8), sendmail(8)

WARNING
       mail.local  escapes  only "^From	" lines	that follow an empty line.  If
       all lines starting with "From " should be escaped, use the 'E' flag for
       the local mailer	in the sendmail.cf file.

HISTORY
       A superset of mail.local	(handling mailbox reading as well as mail  de-
       livery) appeared	in Version 7 AT&T UNIX as the program mail.

			 $Date:	2013-11-22 20:51:51 $		 MAIL.LOCAL(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mail.local&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+14.3.quarterly>

home | help