mailintro(1)
mailintro --
introduction to mail commands and services
Description
This manual page provides a brief introduction to mail and also
serves as a central reference of mail-related manual pages.
For a full description of the UnixWare mail system, refer to the
Mail and Messaging
topic.
Overview and definitions
Logically, the mail system consists of two primary components:
-
a mail transport agent (MTA) is responsible for
delivering mail into the right inbox
-
one or more user agents (MUAs) that can read mailboxes,
display them, allow new messages to be composed, and submit these
new messages to the MTA for delivery
These components are also available:
-
High-performance Internet servers for POP3 and IMAP4,
that allow mail folders to be accessed remotely by any compatible client,
are also available.
-
A Message Store used by the MUAs, the MTA,
and the Internet servers to read and write folders. This allows
folder options to be configured on a system-wide basis. Users can
individually override the system-wide folder configuration.
Messages are formatted to support Internet standards, commonly
called RFC822 and MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions). For the purposes of these manual pages, we reference
MIME support, but do not document the format itself.
The Mail Transport Agent (MTA)
For UnixWare, sendmail is the MTA. It supports
local mail delivery and SMTP (network and Internet) delivery.
It can theoretically be configured to connect to any arbitrary mail
system. UUCP delivery is also supported.
The Mail User Agents (MUAs)
For UnixWare,
mailx(1),
pine(1),
dtmail, and Netscape, are the supported MUAs.
The Message Store supports both sendmail (standard UNIX) and
MMDF folder formats. It support inboxes located in either
the system spool directory or in each user's home directory.
Lastly, graphical administration tools are provided for both user options
and system-administrator options.
References
The following is a reference of all mail man pages by category, with
a brief description of each.
sendmail MTA and related utilities
sendmail (1M)-
Basic sendmail manual page, with overview and command line
options.
aliases(4)-
Describes the format of the aliases file.
forward(4)-
Similar to .maildelivery in function, sendmail
processes .forward files to customize the receipt of personal
mail. The format and options of .forward are described on
this manual page.
hoststat(1M)-
Lists the status of the last mail transaction with all remote hosts.
maildelivery(4)-
Mail delivery configuration file.
mailq(1)-
Prints out all entries in sendmail's queue.
mailstats(1M)-
Prints out sendmail statistics.
makemap(1M)-
Builds a Berkeley (sendmail-compatible) database file from
a text file. Map files can be accessed much faster than a plain
text file.
mfck(1)-
Mail folder check, folder recovery and conversion program.
newaliases(1M)-
Rebuilds aliases.db from aliases.
purgestat(1M)-
Resets host statistics.
praliases(1M)-
Prints out contents of the alias file.
rmail(1M)-
UUCP uses rmail to post incoming mail to the
sendmail MTA.
sendmail.cf(4)-
The sendmail configuration file. Normally, the graphical
administration tool (mailadmin) is used to edit
sendmail.cf.
slocal(1)-
The delivery agent used by sendmail for final, local
delivery. User-specific defaults affecting mail delivery are configured
in the file ~/.maildelivery. The Vacation Notification
Manager (see
Vacation Notification Manager in Vacation Notification Manager)
is used to edit this file for the purpose of setting up automatic
absence notification.
smrsh(1M)-
sendmail restricted shell, sendmail can use this to run
command lines specified in .forward files for enhanced security.
vacation(1)-
Notifies other users that the recipient is away. This program is
backwards-compatible with MMDF's rcvtrip.
UnixWare provides
m4(1)
macros, unmodified from the original Berkeley sendmail
distribution, to generate a sendmail configuration file
(sendmail.cf) that is not compatible with the
scoadmin(1M)
graphical administration tool. However, these macros are available
for those administrators who wish to use them. They are supplied under
the directory /etc/mail/cf.
Message store configuration files
mail(4)-
Describes the format of the message store configuration files
(/etc/default/mail and .maildef) for those who
wish to hand-edit them. The graphical administration utilities are
normally used to edit these files.
Mail User Agent commands
mail(1)-
A line oriented mail reader, also known as mailx, that has basic
IMAP client and MIME capabilities.
pine(1)-
A full-screen character based mailer, developed at the University of
Washington, that has advanced IMAP client and MIME
capabilities.
pinef(1)-
A version of pine using function keys instead of Control characters
for commands.
Netscape Mail, described in Netscape Help, contains an IMAP
client. There is no separate manual page for Netscape Mail or for
dtmail.
Mail notification utilities
mailcheck(1)-
Checks for the existence of new mail in your mailbox.
xbiff(X1)-
The graphical version of mailcheck; an animated icon appears when
new mail arrives.
Internet servers
imapd (1M)-
The IMAP4 server.
ipopd (1M)-
The POP3 server.
Graphical administration commands
mailadmin(1M)-
Graphical administration for sendmail and the message store.
mailadmin also provides a command line interface. The manual
page primarily describes the command line interface.
multihome(1)-
Graphical administration for sendmail multihome aliasing
mailer.
Informational and miscellaneous commands
mailaddr(1M)-
Describes valid Internet mail address formats.
Mail development system commands
maillock(3X)-
Describes how to manage the locking and unlocking of a
user's mailbox.
The underlying API for the message store is described in
Message store programming in Message store programming.
metamail utilities
metamail is used only by mailx to provide MIME
support and is composed of several utilities and files:
metamail(1)-
Master metamail program, which in turn calls the
rest of the metamail programs.
extcompose(1)-
Composes a reference to an external data source for inclusion in
a mail message.
getfilename(1M)-
Prompts for a filename of a certain type when composing a MIME
message.
mailcap(4)-
metamail capabilities file, used to add new MIME types.
mailto(1)-
Provides a simple user interface to compose a MIME message.
metasend(1)-
Provides a basic user interface to send a binary or other
non-textual message.
mimencode(1)-
Encodes or decodes MIME messages when sending or reading mail.
richtext(1M)-
Displays a richtext file on a standard ASCII terminal.
showexternal(1M)-
Displays the body of a mail message which is referenced externally from
within a MIME message.
shownonascii(1M)-
Displays a MIME message which contains data in a non-ASCII
character set in its own, correctly-configured X window.
showpartial(1M)-
Displays the parts of a mail message which are referenced externally from
within a MIME message.
showpicture(1M)-
Displays a picture received in a MIME message by bringing
up the associated graphical viewer.
splitmail(1)-
Splits a message into several MIME-conformant pieces.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004