Usenet 1994 January

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Usenet 1994 January / usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicjanuary1994.iso / sources / unix / volume4 / msg / fmtd2 / Guide.fmtd

Wrap

Text File | 1986-11-30 | 49.3 KB | 1,783 lines

Msg 3.1 Users Guide Dave Taylor March 15, 1986 1. Introduction The UNIX operating system was originally written on a small PDP machine to work with teletypewriters. Conse- quently, all the original software for the operating system was written with a 'tty' in mind - they were all line oriented, rather than screen oriented. Gradually this began to change, and, with the addition of the Berkeley vi visual shell to the ed line editor, the trend was brought to the attention of certain UNIX systems designers. This, however, seemingly hasn't been enough, as vi and notes are still the only screen oriented software available (other than games, which are a taboo subject with managers and the like!). Consequently, after becoming more and more frustrated with the existing electronic mail facilities on the system ('mail' and 'mailx', both of which are essen- tially line-editors) I decided to write my own! This document discusses the msg mailer, and includes a set of example screens and a discussion of configuration (for systems administrators). It is broken down into the following general sections; The .msgrc file, starting options of msg, the main system level, responses of various commands, the alias system, and system configuration. Any comments or problems with either this document or the program itself are welcome: all installed systems should have an alias that will ensure that I receive any mail sent to 'msg'. Page 1 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 2. The .msgrc File The msg mailer has the ability to automatically read in a configuration file at each invocation. The file must be called ".msgrc" and reside in your home directory for it to be read in, and can have any of the following entries in any order (note that the first four entries replace environment variables of the same name, and the four boolean options supplement required starting parameters); fullname This is the name the mailer will use when sending mail from you. It is highly recommended that you use your full name and nothing strange or unusual, as that can appear extremely rude to people receiving your mail. maildir This is the default mail folder. It is used to expand filenames in the mailer when specified using the '=' metacharacter. That is, if you save to file "=/stuff" then the '=' will be expanded to the current value of maildir. mailbox This is where to put incoming mail after you've read it. When you answer 'y' to the "save to mailbox?" prompt, this is where the messages go! editor The editor to use when typing in message to peo- ple. print This indicates how to print out a message. There are two possible formats for this string, either a command that can have a filename affixed to (as a suffix) and then sent to the system for execution, or a string that contains the meta-sequence '%s' which will be replaced by the name of the file and then also sent to the shell. Examples of each are; print = print -formfeed print = pr %s | lpr prefix When you reply to a message or forward a message to another person, you can optionally include the original message. Defining the prefix value here allows you to indicate what the prefix of each included line should be. The default is "> " and is fairly standard in the Unix community. savemail This is where outgoing mail will have a copy silently (and quickly) saved. This will only be Page 2 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 used if the flag 'copy' is turned on. Also note that if the 'savename' flag is turned on then this line is ignored since each outgoing message is saved according to whom it's being sent to. shell This defines the shell to use when doing '!' escapes and such. Note that the program also reads the $SHELL variable out of the current environment, but that defining this in the .msgrc file will override the environment definition. weedout This is something new and exciting! When specify- ing this option, you can then list as many headers of messages that you don't want to see when you are read mail. This list can continue for as many lines as desired, as long as the continued lines all have leading indentation. alternatives This is a list of other machine/username combi- nations that you receive mail from (forwarded). This is used when the G)roup reply feature is invoked to ensure that you don't send yourself a copy of the outbound message. autocopy This is a boolean flag, and if set will automati- cally copy the text of each message being replied to into the edit buffer. This is the same as the '-a' starting parameter. copy This, in combination with the "savemail" filename, will allow you to have silent copies of all outgo- ing mail made on the outbound step. resolve This is a boolean flag that defines the behaviour of the program for such actions as deletion, sav- ing a message and so on. weed This is a boolean flag that, in combination with the "weedout" list, allows you to custom define the set of headers you would like to not have displayed while reading messages. The defaults are listed further into the document. noheader This boolean flag tells the mailer not to include the headers of messages when copying a message into a file buffer for replying to or forwarding. titles This boolean flag allows you to have each page of a message to be titled with: Message #N from username Mailed date at time where all the information has been previously Page 3 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 extracted from the message. This is especially useful if you weed out all the headers of each message with a large 'weedout' list... Two more things: the format for each of the lines is; variable = value and for boolean variables, value can be 'ON' or 'OFF' only. For a better idea of how this all works, here's my .msgrc file. While looking through it, notice that you can have lots of comments and blank lines for readability and that you can also use 'shell variables' and the '~' metacharacter for your home directory, and they are expanded accordingly when read in by the mailer. # # .msgrc - automatic variable defines for the 'msg' mailer. # # Personalized for Dave Taylor # fullname = Dave Taylor # where to save my mail to, default directory maildir = ~/Mail # where to save messages to, default file mailbox = ~/Mail/mailbox # what editor to use editor = $EDITOR # where to save mail if not specified somewhere else savemail = ~/Mail/mail.sent # how to print a message ('%s' is the filename) print = /usr/local/bin/print -p lpn -f %s # prefix sequence for including message text in other messages... prefix = > # what headers I DON'T want to see, ever. weedout = "Via:" "Sent:" "Date:" "Status:" "Original" "From" "Phase" "Subject:" "Fruit" "Sun" "Lat" "Buzzword" "Return" "Posted" "Telephone" "Postal-Address" "Origin" "X-Sent-By-Nmail-V" "Resent" "X-Location" "Source" "Mood" "Neuron" "Libido" "To:" "X-Mailer:" "Full-Name:" "X-HPMAIL" Page 4 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 "Cc:" "cc:" "Mmdf" "Network-" # automatically copy message being replied to into buffer? autocopy = OFF # save a copy of all outbound messages? copy = ON # emulate the mailx message increment mode (only increment after something # has been 'done' to a message, either saved or deleted) resolve = ON # enable the weedout list to be read... weed = ON # when messages are copied into the outbound buffer, don't include headers noheader = ON # display message title when displaying pages of message titles = ON # alternative addresses that I could receive mail from (usually a # forwarding mailbox) alternatives = hpcnof!dat, hpcnof!d_taylor, hpcnou!d_taylor, hpcnou!root, hpcnou!postmaster, hpcnoe!d_taylor, hpcnoe!dat, hpcnoa!d_taylor, hpcnoa!dat, hpfcla!d_taylor Along with this, there is still an environment variable that the mailer checks for, namely "EDITOR", which can also define what editor to use when entering messages. As with the shell variable, having an editor specified in the .msgrc file will override anything read in from the current environment. 3. The Starting Parameters There are a number of starting options to the msg pro- gram, with only one that needs to be remembered: '-?'or '-h' for help. The flags are; -d Debug. Useful for debugging the msg program. The results of using the debug option is much less drastic than in the previous versions of the pro- gram - it creates a file in your home directory Page 5 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 called "Msg.debug.info" and creates a (verbose) log of activity as the program is used. -f <file> File. Read specified file rather than the default input mailbox. -h or -? Help. Gives a short list of all these options and exit. -k Keypad - This option, when used, lets the msg pro- gram know that you're on an HP terminal, and it can then interpret the PREV NEXT and HOME/DOWN- HOME keys accordingly. If you are not on an HP terminal, it is recommended that you do NOT use this option. -s Softkeys. The msg mailer can, to a rather limited extent, use the HP softkeys as an alternative form of input. If you specify this option be sure that you're on an HP terminal that can accept the stan- dard 2622 terminal escape sequences! -z Zero. This causes the mailer not to be started if you don't have any mail. This emulates the behaviour of programs like 'mailx'. -S <subject> In batch mode, this is how to indicate the subject of the resulting message. Please see the section on "Non-Interactive Uses of Msg" for further information. All the above flags default to reasonable options, so there is usually no need to use them. 4. Non-Interactive Uses of Msg Before we discuss the main mail system, it's worth not- ing that there are a couple of other ways to use the msg mail system, namely to 'send only' and to send files (batch- mail). To send a message to someone without any of the associ- ated overhead of the main system being loaded, you can invoke the mailer with the name(s) of the people to send to. The mailer will then prompt for Subject, Copies, and then drop you in your (defined in the ".msgrc" file) editor to compose the message. When composition is complete, the program verifies transmission then terminates. For example; Page 6 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 $ msg dat To: ihnp4!hpfcla!d_taylor Subject: this is a test Copies To: <return> <invokes editor, message composed, then> Are you sure you want to send this? (y/n) y mail sent. $ Note that the user input is in bold face, so you can see that the mailer verified the alias expansion too! The mailer also supports batch type mailing, of files and so on, by using the following starting sequence; $ msg -S "File help.c" dat < help.c which will read in the file and transmit it to the specified user with the specified subject. Note that the program is intelligent enough to check to see what the stdin is from this invocation, so a command of the form $ msg -S "file help.c" dat would result in the following sequence (since the program is reading the "standard in" for information; $ msg -S "file help.c" dat To: ihnp4!hpfcla!d_taylor Subject: file help.c Enter your message, ending with ^D this is the message Please don't ask me why I used this wierd mode! ^D <end-of-message> $ which is reasonable behaviour!! (not only that, but this is almost exactly what /bin/mail does in the same situation!!) Page 7 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 Enough of this foolishness, however, let's get onto the real stuff; 5. The Main System Upon entry to the program, the main screen will be displayed as below; ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mailbox is '/usr/mail/mymail' with 13 messages. [Version 3.0] 1<- Apr 3 rob Doing anything tonight? 2 Apr 5 hplabs!joe bug in gammon game 3 Apr 5 root 4 Apr 6 root (continuation of previous message) U 5 Apr 8 decvax!mouse Re: net.music article decvax:495 6 Apr 13 John Jacobs How can you hate RUSH? 7 Apr 15 kevin More software requests N 8 Apr 18 games Hi there N 9 Apr 18 Dave Taylor EditFile.c source... N 10 Apr 23 veeger!carl More silly stuff |=pipe, !=shell, ?=help, <n>=set current to n, /=search pattern A)lias, C)hange mailbox, D)elete, F)orward, G)roup reply, M)ail, N)ext, P)rint, R)eply, S)ave to file, Q)uit, U)ndelete, or eX)it Mail :@ ----------------------------------------------------------------- There are a number of things to notice about this screen; o The top line always displays the current mail file, the number of messages in the file, and the current msg version number. o On the left side of each message is the message number which is unique for each message in the file. o The arrow ('<-') always points to the current message. This is the message that the commands having default message numbers (such as D)elete, and N)ext) will work with. Page 8 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 o The date associated with each message is the date the person sent the message. This is obtained by either the oldest of the ">From" line dates, or, if possible, by parsing the "Date:" line. o The third field displayed is a truncated 'from' address, and will indicate whom the message is from. Note that on the sixth and ninth messages full names appear instead of the usual machine!login format. This is because these messages have a From line of the form: From: fullname <address> or From: address (fullname) which the mailer reads and displays if possible. The msg mailer (version 2.1 and beyond) also generates this header line on outgoing mail. o The final field is the (optional) subject of the mes- sage. Note that message 3 has no subject. o Message five is an 'Urgent' message (it contains the header Priority: Urgent to make it urgent) that should be read immediately. o Messages 8 thru 10 are new since the last time the user read their mail - the "N" in the leftmost margin indi- cates this. o A maximum of ten messages are displayed at one time*. Further into the document we'll learn how to change 'pages' in the mailbox. o The three line mini-menu will always indicate what com- mands are available at the current moment. o Finally, the '@' character indicates where the cursor would be, awaiting your input. The typical action at this point is to use the <return> key to read the current message. This particular option __________ 0. On terminals with greater than 25 lines, more messages will be displayed automatically. Page 9 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 isn't noted in the mini-menu, but choosing the '?=help' option will inform you of a number of choices other than those in the basic menu! Pressing this key will clear the screen and display the first page of the message. At the bottom of the page, the system will write either; Please press <space> to continue <xx> lines left or Please press <space> to return These indicate how much of the current message has been read: 'continue' indicates the presence of at least one more line of information (the exact number will be indicated on the right hand side as 'xx lines left'). Pressing <return> rather than <space> will automatically return you to the main system level at any page of a message. When the message continues onto another page the msg mailer will also indicate how many lines are left in the message... If resolve-mode is turned off (see the 'resolve' flag) the current message pointer (the arrow) will be incremented after reading the message and will point to the next message in the list. As you can see, it would be quite simple to quickly read through all the pending mail by repeatedly using the <return> command at the menu level, and the <space> bar while reading each message! While reading is perhaps the most fundamental function that the msg program performs, there are a number of other options available, namely; Command Action | Pipe current message to specified com- mand. ! Shell escape. ? A help screen listing commands +, <space>, or <NEXT> Next page of headers -, or <PREV> Previous page of headers =, or <HOME> Set current message to 1 *, or <SHIFT>-<HOME> Set current to last message. Page 10 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 <n> Set current message to n a Alias, change to 'alias' mode c Change current mail file d Delete current message f Forward message to specified user g Group reply - reply to everyone who received the current message h Display message + headers j Increment current message by one k Decrement current message by one m Mail to arbitrary user(s) n or <return> Next message (Read current, then increment) o Option. Alter current options. p Print current message. r Reply to the author of current message s Save current message to file t The current time and date is displayed q Quit - mail deleted, saved in mbox or left. u Undelete current message v Variables. Display current variables. x Exit - don't record as read, don't save... ^L Rewrite screen. ^M (<return>) Read current message ^Q, ^Z, DEL Exit - don't record as read, don't save... That are all the commands available at the main level of the msg program! Now you can see why it is nice to leave the three-line menu displayed! As an example, let's enter a series of commands and indicate what the display would be after each one; First off, let's go to the next page of mail with '+'; Page 11 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mailbox is '/usr/mail/mymail' with 13 messages. [Version 3.0] N 11<- Apr 27 Jack Wanna buy some albums cheap? N 12 Apr 28 Jack Cancel the previous offer! N 13 Apr 30 sdcsvax!dx Moving day (long) |=pipe, !=shell, ?=help, <n>=set current to n, /=search pattern A)lias, C)hange mailbox, D)elete, F)orward, G)roup reply, M)ail, N)ext, P)rint, R)eply, S)ave to file, Q)uit, U)ndelete, or eX)it Mail :@ ----------------------------------------------------------------- We need to move the current message pointer to message 11, so type in '11', then let's read the new current message by using the next command (typing <return>)... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Message #11 from Jack Mailed December 7, 1984 at 8:45 pm Hey Dave! I've got some old AC/DC and KISS albums, and as I know you are a collector, do you want to buy them off of me before I make ashtrays out of them (or frisbees...)? Humourously, Jack The Gripper Please press <space> to return: @ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Page 12 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 Needless to say, we can't let this message go by without replying! So let's press the <space> bar to return to the main menu, then use the reply command to respond. After pressing the 'r' key, the program asks if a copy of the source message is desired (the character under the cursor indicates the default if <return> is pressed. In this case, the default is 'no'); copy source message? (y/n) @ We choose to answer no, so press the 'n' key. Next msg verifies that the subject is okay; Subject: Re: Wanna buy some albums cheap?@ Typing anything other than <return> will allow us to change the subject to something more appropriate. Furthermore, if we choose to type our "kill line" character (the same as the one the shell uses, probably Control-U or Control-X) the entire line will be erased. We decide, however, to leave it be and press return. Finally, we're asked if we want to send copies of this mes- sage to anyone. We don't, so we press <return> one more time. The program then puts us in the vi editor (the default, assuming no other editor specified by the '.msgrc' variable "editor") with a blank file. After having entered a suitable reply, and left the editor, the msg system then verifies that we really want to send the message with; Are you sure you want to send this message? (y/n) @ To which the response is 'y' for 'yes'. It then sends the message off to Jack, who will receive it hopefully quite soon (or at least before he makes ashtrays out of the albums!) Also, if we have a file called ".msgheaders" in our home directory, the mailer will include those headers in the outbound message. This is to allow custom (personalized) mail, especially headers like "Organization:" and "Loca- tion:". Page 13 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 Message 11 is still the current message, so, now that we have saved it, let's mark it for deletion by using the delete command 'd'. The screen is now; ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mailbox is '/usr/mail/mymail' with 13 messages. [Version 3.0] N 11 * Apr 27 Jack Wanna buy some albums cheap? N 12<- Apr 28 Jack Cancel the previous offer! N 13 Apr 30 sdcsvax!dx Moving day (long) |=pipe, !=shell, ?=help, <n>=set current to n, /=search pattern A)lias, C)hange mailbox, D)elete, F)orward, G)roup reply, M)ail, N)ext, P)rint, R)eply, S)ave to file, Q)uit, U)ndelete, or eX)it Mail :@ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Now lets go back to the first page of messages by typing '='; Page 14 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mailbox is '/usr/mail/mymail' with 13 messages. [version 2.2] 1<- Apr 3 rob Doing anything tonight? 2 Apr 5 hplabs!joe bug in gammon game 3 Apr 5 root 4 Apr 6 root (continuation of previous message) U 5 Apr 8 decvax!mouse Re: net.music article decvax:495 6 Apr 13 John Jacob How can you hate RUSH? 7 Apr 15 kevin More software requests N 8 Apr 18 games Hi there N 9 Apr 18 Dave Taylor EditFile.c source... N 10 Apr 23 veeger!carl More silly stuff |=pipe, !=shell, ?=help, <n>=set current to n, /=search pattern A)lias, C)hange mailbox, D)elete, F)orward, G)roup reply, M)ail, N)ext, P)rint, R)eply, S)ave to file, Q)uit, U)ndelete, or eX)it Mail :@ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Gee..note five not only looks mildly interesting but it's an Urgent message too! So let's read it by typing '5'<return> to make that the current message, and press <return> again to read it. After reading the message we decide that this seems like a message worth keeping in the 'music' mailbox, so lets do that by using the save to file command! Pressing 's' results in the msg system prompting; Save to what file : @ to which we reply '=/music'. The file is then saved in the directory we specified as mail home via the '.msgrc' vari- able "maildir". After saving, the "Mail:" prompt returns, with message 5 marked for deletion and the current message pointer incremented to message 6. Before we finish up, we suddenly remember that one of the messages was supposed to be about how to write decent documentation for Unix systems, so let's try to find it... First off, we'll move back to message one with the <HOME> key (you'll need to use the "-k" starting option and be on an HP terminal for this to work!) and then use the '/' pattern matching command: Page 15 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 Mail: Pattern / = match anywhere in messages Match pattern: @ we'll type in 'document' and see if the system can find it. After a brief second or two it returns 'pattern not found.' Hmm...maybe it's not either the from or the subject of any of the messages...In case, let's try using the new match anywhere in message command; Mail: @ To which we type '/' for pattern matching; Mail: Pattern / = match anywhere in messages Match pattern: @ Now we'll use '/' again to get the match anywhere in file option, and then get the prompt; Match pattern (in entire mailbox): @ to which we respond 'document' again. The msg mailer then searches through each line of all the messages in the file and moves the current message pointer to message number 7. A quick check reveals that this message indeed contains the word 'document', but it's not the one we want, so we're going to just get outta here! We've had enough mail for today, so lets quit, saving all messages in our mailbox as defined in the '.msgrc' file, except messages 5 and 11, which are marked for deletion. Quit prompts; Delete messages? (y/n) @ to which we answer 'y' for yes. The next prompt is then; Keep mail in incoming mailbox? (y/n) @ To which we also answer yes...the program then quickly saves the files, removing message 5 and 11 as it goes along, and exits. Page 16 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 6. Responses... This section will discuss each command in the msg pro- gram in more detail than above, including the prompts the user can expect upon executing the command, the meaning of different options etc etc. | Pipe. This command allows you to pipe the current message through other filters as you desire. The shell used for the entire command will be either the one specified in your ".msgrc" file, or, if none, /bin/sh. ! Shell. This allows you to send a command to the shell without leaving the program. ? Help. This command produces a two-page display that details all the commands available in a reference guide format. / Pattern match. This command, on the top level, allows the user to search through all the from and subject lines of the current mailbox starting at the current message and continuing through the end. If the first character of the pattern is a '/', then the program will try to match the speci- fied pattern against ANY line in the mailbox. Again, this works from one after the current mes- sage through the end. <n> Specify new current message. Typing in any of the digits one thru nine will result in the msg pro- gram producing the prompt 'Set current to : n', where 'n' is the digit entered. Note that changing the current message to a message not on the current page of the headers will result in a new page of headers being displayed. a Alias. The alias system is a way by which more complex mail addresses can be shortened for the mail user. For example; joe, blow : Joe Blow : veeger!hpcnoe!hpcfla!jblow which allows mail to 'joe' with the system expand- ing the address properly. As is obvious, this not only saves remembering complex addresses, it also allows the address to be optimized to go through Page 17 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 the minimum number of machines without anyone hav- ing to be informed of the change. A more detailed discussion can be found in the section entitled 'The Alias System'. c Change mailbox. Specifying this command allows the user to change the mailbox file that is currently being read. This is intended for perusal and reply to previously archived messages. The prompt is 'Name of new mailbox : ' and enter- ing <return> cancels the operation, while entering a filename causes the program to read that file as the new mailbox file, if possible. As with the "save" command, this command expands filenames with '~' being your home directory and '=' being your MAILDIR directory, if defined. This command also allows the special character '!' to be used to allow you to change to the default incoming mailbox. d, u Delete and Undelete. Neither of these two com- mands have any prompts and indicate their action by either adding an asterisk to the current mes- sage index entry (indicating deletion pending) or removing the asterisk (indicating that the dele- tion is cancelled). f Forward. Allows the user to forward the current message to another user. This copies the message into the edit buffer and allows the user to add their own message too. The prompt is 'Forward to:' and will expand an alias if entered. j, k These two keys work similarly to what they would do in 'vi' or any of the other screen oriented programs. The 'j' key moves the current message pointer down to the next message (going to the next page if needed) and the 'k' key moves the current message pointer back to the previous mes- sage (also changing pages if needed) m Mail. Send mail to a specified user. The prompt that is associated with this command is 'Send mail to :'. Entering an alias name results in the full address being rewritten in parenthesis immedi- ately. This prompt is followed by 'Subject:' which allows the user to title their note. The final field is 'Copies to: ', which allows other people specified to receive "carbon copies" of the message. Upon entering all three items the vi edi- tor (or any other editor specified by $EDITOR) is Page 18 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 invoked and the message can be composed. n Next message. See above. o Options. This is a small subsystem of the msg system with the various options selected by their first letter, '1' enabling the option, '0' disa- bling it and <return> leaving it unchanged. 'r' returns to the main system. p Print message. This allows you to print out the current message to a previously defined printer (see the section on the '.msgrc' discussing the "print" variable) q Quit. This command's action is dependent on the current state of the msg program. For example, if the current mailbox is the default mailbox the messages that are not deleted are saved in the file $home/mbox, whereas if it is a specified mailbox the to-be-deleted messages are removed from the file. The possible prompts are 'Save to mailbox?' if the default mailbox is being read and there is at least one message to save, 'Delete all messages' if all messages in any mailbox are marked for deletion or 'Delete message(s)?' if not reading the default mailbox and there are some messages that should be saved. A response of 'n' (no) to any of these questions will result in the quit command aborting, and the files being untouched. r Reply. Reply to the author of the current mes- sage. If the autocopy flag is not specified, the program will prompt 'Copy Message? (y/n)' to which the user can specify whether a copy of the source message is to be copied into the edit buffer, or not. If copied in, all lines from the message are prepended with the prefix character sequence, as specified in the users ".msgrc" file. s Save to file. As demonstrated in the above exam- ple, this command allows the current message to be copied into an arbitrary file. If there is any- thing in the file currently the message is appended to the end, otherwise the file is created containing only the message. The prompt for this command is 'Save to file : '. A response of <return> cancels the command and returns the user to the system prompt. After saving a file, the message is marked for deletion and the current Page 19 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 message pointer is incremented. There are two available meta-characters when specifying a filename too - '~' as the first character expands to your home directory, and '=' as the first char- acter expands to the mail folder directory defined via the 'maildir' variable in the users ".msgrc" file. t Time. This simply displays the current date and time in a nice readable format. v Variables. This is also a small subsystem of the msg system allowing you to alter the value of various msg variables. The variables that you can change are the 'EDITOR' variable which determines what editor to use when you compose a message, the 'MAILBOX' variable which indicates where mail is to be put after being read, and the 'USERNAME' variable. (Note that only the superuser can change their username within the program) x Exit. This is functionally the same as answering 'n'o to the quit command prompt, and simply leaves the program in the quickest possible manner. This command can also occur from typing DELETE, control-Q or control-Z, all of which are also exit commands. 7. Special Outgoing Mail Processing There are a few extra features that the mailer offers on outgoing mail that are worthy of mention; The first, and probably the most exciting feature, is the ability to send encrypted mail! To do this is extremely simple: You need merely to have two 'key lines' "[encode]" and "[clear]" in the message body. Consider the following outgoing message: Joe, Remember that talk we had about Amy? Well, I talked to my manager about it and he said... uhh...better encrypt this...the usual 'key'... Page 20 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 [encode] He said that Amy was having family problems and that it had been affecting her work. Given this, I went and talked to her, and told her I was sorry for getting angry. She said that she understood. We're friends again!! [clear] Exciting stuff, eh? Mike While this is obviously quite readable while being typed into the editor, as soon as the message is confirmed as wanting to be sent, the msg mailer prompts with; Enter encryption key: @ and accepts a key (or series of 8 or less characters) without echoing them to the screen. After entry, it will ask for the same key again to confirm it, then *poof* it will encrypt and send the mail! If you have the "copy" option enabled, the program will save your copy of the message encrypted too. (This is to ensure the privacy and security of your archived mail too!) If the mailer doesn't ask for the encryption key, it's because you don't have the '[encode]' entered as the first 8 characters of the line. It MUST be so for this to work!! On the other end, a person receiving this mail (they must also be using msg to receive it, since this mailer has a unique encryption program) will be reading the message and then suddenly be prompted; Enter decryption key: @ and will again be asked to re-enter it to confirm. The pro- gram will then on-the-fly decrypt the mail and display each line as it is decoded. The '[clear]' line signifies that the block to encrypt is done. For those sites not running msg, I also have available the encryption code as a separate program suitable for a filter for use with other mailers... Page 21 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 The other option on outgoing mail is the ability to specify what section of the message you want to have archived (assuming "copy" is enabled) and what section you don't. This is most useful for sending out source file listings and so on... To indicate the end of the section that should be saved in the archive, you need merely to have the line [no save] appear by itself on a line. This will be removed from the outgoing mail, and will indicate the last line of the mes- sage in the saved mail. 8. The Mail Archive File The format of the mail saved to the archive file is also worth a quick discussion. Unlike the usual exact copy of the entire header section, the archived mail has the fol- lowing header; From To:<name> 15 Jan 1985 4:54:30 MST Original-To: <address> Subject: <subject> <message body> The first line, the 'From' line, is deliberately mangled with the occurance of the 'To:<name' to ensure that when you are perusing your archive file with the mailer that you see WHO the message was TO, since they're all going to be FROM you!! The <name> will either be the machine!login of the person, or, if used as an alias, it will be the alias name. To read this file, you can use the mailer, choosing the "C)hange mailbox" command, or start up specifying your archive file as the mailbox to read. Page 22 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 9. Using MSG with the Notes System A new and innovative feature in the 3.0 release of the msg program is the ability to read files saved by the notes system and display them as individual messages. Unfor- tunately, the notes software does not currently save a note with the subject line, however, so the mailer uses the next best thing and displays each note in the form: 1 Apr 5 hplabs!kundler Note from group net.unix-wizards 2 Apr 7 hplabs!richards Note from group net.unix-wizards and so on. The individual notes can be replied to by using the reply command, as with normal mail, and the mailer will modify it's behaviour to work with this particular brand of mail file. How does the mailer know if it's reading a file that contains normal mail versus a saved set of notes? By check- ing the first line of the file - if it's the header line that notes emits (ie "/***** host:login / notesgroup / date **/") then the file is considered to be a notes file. If not, the default for unknown files is to assume they're mail files. 10. The Alias System As mentioned previously, there exists in the msg system a set of aliases that associate an arbitrary word (such as a persons name) to a complex address or group. The advantages are readily apparent; rather than remembering an address of the form; machine1!machine2!machine3! ... !machineN!account the user merely has to remember a single word. Two alias tables are available for a each user within msg, namely the system alias file and the users' alias file. The system alias file is created and maintained (by the sys- tem administrator) by editing the file '/usr/mail/.alias_text' as described in the documentation with the newalias command, then running the newalias pro- gram. Page 23 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 An individual user can also have an alias file which works in conjunction with the system aliases. To do this, they need merely to peruse the documentation for the newalias command and create a file as indicated therein. After executing the program, the aliases will be available for using from within msg. The command checkalias is also useful to ensure that the aliases are installed correctly. Within msg, however, the alias system acts as an entirely different program, with it's own commands and own mini-menu. The menu replaces the standard mini-menu with; --------------------------------------------------------------------- Alias commands A)lias current message, C)heck alias, M)ake user alias, R)eturn Alias: @ --------------------------------------------------------------------- The commands are; a Alias current message. This allows the user to create an alias that has the return address of the current message as the address field of the alias. It prompts for a unique alias name. Important note: when you alias an address in this fashion, the mailer will try to minimize the amount it needs to store by iteratively comparing machine names in the path with the machines in the pathalias database. Once it finds an entry the address will be saved at that point. For further information, please see the "Msg Alias System Guide". c Check alias. This is a simple way of checking what is in the alias database - it prompts for an alias name, and returns the address associated with that name or the error message 'alias not found' as appropriate. m Make user alias. This will prompt for a unique alias name and then for an address. The informa- tion provided will be added to your individual alias_text file ($home/.alias_text) and then added Page 24 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 to the database. r Return. Return to the main level of the msg pro- gram. 11. While We're Talking Aliases... Another feature worthy of discussion, since it's been getting lots of veiled references throughout this document, is the system alias section. This is implemented using the uucp pathalias database, with a file (whose location is specified in the hdrs/sysdefs.h file - see the Configuration Guide) in the format: hostname <tab> address!%s The actual details of the file are, suprise suprise, located in the Alias System Users Guide. Anyway, to use them is quite simple...when specifying the address of someone, you can either have an alias for them already, resond to their mail to you, or use the system alias feature! Enough hype, right? Okay...to use this feature, you specify an address by either "machine!person" ignoring if your specific machine can talk directly to the machine specified, or, if you prefer the ARPANET addressing scheme, "person@machine". When you enter the address as specified, the mailer will quickly search through the pathalias data- base file and expand the specified address to be a legiti- mate routing address. What's really nice about this is that the address that we're going to send to can be either on ARPA, CSNET, BITNET, uucp, or any other network. The method of specifying the basic address is the same regardless! For example, mail to me could be sent as either "hpfcla!d_taylor" (or "hpfcla!hpcnof!d_taylor", with the first machine name being expanded) or "d_taylor@hpfcla". msg will expand them both in the same manner. As the song goes, check the alias guide... Page 25 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 12. Expert Mail Users and Debugging the Mailer There are some additional facilities available in the msg mailer for those people who are knowledgable about mail protocols, or trying to debug/track down a problem. The 'h' command at the outermost level of the mailer will display the current message ignoring the current set- ting of the 'weed' option. This is most useful for answer- ing questions of the form "I wonder what this guy put in his header?" and such. This command does not show up on the mini-menu because it is somewhat esoteric, but it DOES appear on the '?' help screen (can you find it there?). The '@' command at the outermost level of the mailer will output a screen of debugging information, including the number of lines and offsets of each of the message in the current mailbox. The '#' command at the outermost level of the mailer will display the entire stored 'record structure' for the current message. The '%' command at the outermost level of the mailer will display the full computed return address of the current message. Starting up msg with the "-d" debug option will create a file called Msg.debug.info in your home directory and con- tain a wealth of useful information (to me, at least!) to aid in tracking down what errors are occuring and why. With this option on, most everything acts the same with the exception of when you get new mail while in the mailer - it will indicate "New mail: N bytes" rather than the usual "New mail has arrived...hang on...". If there are any problems with the mailer, please try to recreate the error with the debug option enabled before sending defect reports my way. One final note: all error numbers reported by the pro- gram are defined in the HP-UX Reference Manual in Errno(2). Page 26 Msg Users Guide Version 3.2 13. Credits and so on This mailer has been evolving over the past year or so with some extremely valuable input from the following people at Hewlett Packard; Mark Laubach, Walt Underwood, Tw Cook, Larry Fenske, Rob Sartin, and of course Carl Dierschow. There have been many others, to numerous to mention, that have inspired me with questions like "why can't the mailer..." or "why does it do that?" Also helpful was the ability to have my 'own' machine to close up the many many iterative loops that this software has gone through - since being on a big multi-user machine tends to slow it down to a standstill... Finally, it's also been a very useful experience overall, confirming my beliefs that iterative software design and keeping a close watch on users (not to mention an open mind and mailbox!) improves a product manyfold. Incidentally, this entire mail system, including this documentation, is (C) Copyright 1986 Dave Taylor Page 27