mail.local(8) store mail in a mailbox

SYNOPSIS

mail.local [-7] [-b] [-d] [-D mbdb] [-l] [-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
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.
-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 containing 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 '' following a blank line).

The mail files are exclusively locked with flock(2) while mail is appended, 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

/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

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 delivery) appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX as the program mail.