notify(1)                  (Essential Utilities)                  notify(1)


   NAME
         notify - notify user of the arrival of new mail

   SYNOPSIS
         notify -y [ -m mailfile ]
         notify [ -n ]

   DESCRIPTION
         When a new mail message arrives, the mail command first checks if the
         recipient's mailbox indicates that the message is to be forwarded
         elsewhere (to some other recipient or as the input to some command).
         notify is used to set up forwarding on the user's mailbox so that the
         new message is saved into an alternative mailbox and, if the user is
         currently logged in, he or she is notified immediately of the arrival
         of new mail.

         Command-line options are:
         -m mailfile File to save mail messages into while automatic
                     notification is activated.  If not specified, it defaults
                     to $HOME/.mailfile.
         -n          Remove mail notification facility
         -y          Install mail notification facility

         If invoked with no arguments, notify reports whether automatic mail
         notification is activated or not.

         The notification is done by looking in /var/adm/utmp to determine if
         the recipient is currently logged in, and if so, on which terminal
         device. Then the terminal device is opened for writing and the user
         is notified about the new message.  The notification will indicate
         who the message is from.  If the message contains a Subject: header
         line it will be included.  (For security, all unprintable characters
         within the header will be converted to an exclamation point.)

         If the user is logged in multiple times he or she will get multiple
         notifications, one per terminal.  To disable notifications to a
         particular login session, the mesg(1) command can be used to disable
         writing to that terminal.

         If there are multiple machines connected together via RFS or NFS,
         notify will look up the /var/adm/utmp files on the other systems as
         well.  To do this, the file /etc/mail/notify.sys will be consulted,
         which will contain two columns, the first being the name of a system
         and the second being a path to find the root filesystem for that
         machine.

         If notify has troubles delivering the mail to the specified mailfile,
         notify will look up the directory of the mailfile in
         /etc/mail/notify.fsys.  If the file's directory is found in the first
         column of the file, the mail will be forwarded to the system listed
         in the second column instead of being returned to the sender.


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   notify(1)                  (Essential Utilities)                  notify(1)


   FILES
         /tmp/notif*       temporary file
         /var/mail/*       users' standard mailboxes
         /usr/lib/mail/notify2
                           program that performs the notification
         /etc/mail/notify.fsys
                           list of file systems and home systems
         /etc/mail/notify.sys
                           list of machines and paths to their root
                           filesystems
         /var/adm/utmp     list of users who are logged in

   SEE ALSO
         mail(1), mesg(1).
         User's Guide.

   NOTES
         Because notify uses the ``Forward to |command'' facility of mail to
         implement notifications, /var/mail/username should not be specified
         as the place to put newly arrived messages via the -m invocation
         option.  The mail command uses /var/mail/username to hold either mail
         messages, or indications of mail forwarding, but not both
         simultaneously.

         If the user is using layers(1), the notification will only appear in
         the login window.



























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