Sun Microsystems Sun Workstation 100U System Manager's Manual page 168

COMSAT(8C)
MAINTENANCE COMMANDS
COMSAT(8C)
NAME
comsat - biff server
SYNOPSIS
/ ulr / etc/In.comlat,
DESCRIPTION
FILES
Com8ot
is the server process which listens for reports of incoming mail and notifies users who have
requested to be told when mail arrives. It is invoked as needed by inetd(8C), and times out if
inactive for a few minutes.
ComBot listens on a datagram port associated with the "biff" service specification (see 8ervices(5))
for one line messages or the form
userOmailbox-offset
If the UBer specified is logged in to the system and the associated terminal has the owner execute
bit turned on (by a "biff y"), the offset is used as a seek offset into the appropriate mailbox file
and the first 7 lines or 560 characters or the message are printed on the user's terminal. Lines
which appear to be part or the message header other than the "From", "To", "Date", or "Sub-
ject" lines are not printed when displaying the message.
/etc/utmp
SEEALSQ
to find out who's logged on and on what terminals
BUGS
bif1f(I)
The message header filtering is prone to error.
Users should be notified of mail which arrives on other machines than the one they are currently
logged in to.
The notification should appear in a separate window so it does not mess up the screen.
Sun Release 1.1 Last change: 4 March 1983 13