IN.COMSAT(8) Maintenance Procedures IN.COMSAT(8)


NAME


in.comsat, comsat - biff server

SYNOPSIS


/usr/sbin/in.comsat


DESCRIPTION


comsat 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(8), and times out if inactive for a few
minutes.


comsat listens on a datagram port associated with the biff service
specification (see services(5)) for one line messages 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 printed when displaying the
message.

FILES


/var/adm/utmpx
user access and administration information


SEE ALSO


svcs(1), services(5), attributes(7), smf(7), inetadm(8), inetd(8),
svcadm(8)

NOTES


The message header filtering is prone to error.


The in.comsat service is managed by the service management facility,
smf(7), under the service identifier:

svc:/network/comsat:default


Administrative actions on this service, such as enabling, disabling, or
requesting restart, can be performed using svcadm(8). Responsibility for
initiating and restarting this service is delegated to inetd(8). Use
inetadm(8) to make configuration changes and to view configuration
information for this service. The service's status can be queried using
the svcs(1) command.


July 27, 2004 IN.COMSAT(8)