COMSAT(8)						      System Manager's Manual							 COMSAT(8)

NAME

       comsat - biff server

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/libexec/comsat

DESCRIPTION

       Comsat  is  the	server	process  which	receives  reports of incoming mail and notifies users if they have requested this service.  Comsat
       receives messages on a datagram port associated with the ``biff'' service specification (see services(5) and inetd(8)).	The one line  mes-
       sages are of the form

	    user@mailbox-offset

       If  the	user  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 of the message are printed on the
       user's  terminal.   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.

FILES

       /var/run/utmp  to find out who's logged on and on what terminals

SEE ALSO

       biff(1), inetd(8)

BUGS

       The message header filtering is prone to error.	The density of the information 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.

4.2 Berkeley Distribution					 November 16, 1996							 COMSAT(8)