Electronic Mail is a system that allows the user to send and receive mail messages to and from other people on a world wide network. Our network is called ``Internet''. The department uses E-Mail to disperse important information quickly, so you should get into the habit of reading your mail daily.
Incoming mail is stored in the system mailbox for each user. This is a file named after the user in /var/spool/mail. mail looks in this file for incoming messages.
There are several different utilities for reading and sending E-Mail.
Each are discussed briefly here: Mail (mail), elm, pine, and mailtool.
Mail: Sending Mail
It is quite easy to send a person a mail message: just type mail username (See section on finger for determining the username). The machine will then prompt you for the subject of your message. After you type the subject and hit return, you just begin typing the body of your message. When you are finished your message, type ^D and the message will be sent on its way. Here's an example:
lepus% mail smith
Subject: test message
Here is a test mail message to user smith. This is my first
attempt at sending mail from lepus. I hope it works.
^D
lepus%
You may wish to edit your message to correct some mistakes. To invoke 'vi', you type ~v AT THE BEGINNING OF A LINE in the body of your message. This will put you into vi. You must, of course, write and quit from vi, and then do a ^D to send the message.
You may also wish to include a file that already exists into the body of your message. To do this you type ~r filename at the beginning of a new line. Filename should include the path of the file.
If you send a message to a username that is not valid, you will get a message from the Mailer-Daemon telling you that your message was not able to be sent.
You can check to see if your mail message has left lepus' mail queue by typing mailq .
To read a mail message go into mail by simply typing mail Then just type the number corresponding to the message you wish to read and Mail will display that message. Example:
lepus% mail
Mail version SMI 4.0 Sat Oct 13 20:32:29 PDT 1990 Type ? for help.
"/usr/spool/mail/smith": 2 messages
| 1> | dan@manitou.astro.utoronto.ca | Fri Oct 16 14:40 | 52/2320 | |
| 2> | stefan@centaur.astro.utoronto.ca | Thu Oct 22 13:35 | 36/1361 | my message |
Mail% 2
Message 2:
From stefan@centaur.astro.utoronto.ca Thu Oct 22 13:35
To: smith@lepus.astro.utoronto.ca
Subject: my message
Here is a test message for you.
Stefan
Mail: What to do with Old Messages
To get out of mail you type q This will store all your read messages
in a file called 'mbox'. If you don't wish to keep certain messages, from
within mail type d # where # is the appropriate message number. If you
want to save the message to a special file, type s # filename To
access the mail in your mailbox (mbox), type mail -f
There is a mail interface package, called ELM, that some people may wish to use, instead of 'mail'. To start elm, you simply type elm. [Actually, "elm" is obsolete, and you are recommended to use mutt , which looks like "elm" but is much more powerful and is being maintained]. The first time you start elm, it will create some setup files and ask you some questions.
ELM: Reading and Sending Messages
To read messages, start up elm (you may wish to alias this to mail!!).
lepus% elm
Your screen will clear, and something like the following will appear:
| -> | 1 | Dec 3 | Bill Clarke | (60) | Announcement |
| 2 | Oct 22 | Joan Tryggve | (36) | ||
| 3 | Oct 16 | Dan Blanchard | (52) | tftp |
|=pipe, !=shell, ?=help, < n > =set current to n, /=search pattern a)lias, C)opy, c)hange folder, d)elete, e)dit, f)orward, g)roup reply, m)ail, n)ext, o)ptions, p)rint, r)eply, s)ave, t)ag, q)uit, u)ndelete, or e(x)it
Command:
To read a message, you simply move the arrow with your arrow keys to the message you want, and press return. You can also select the message by typing its number.
As you can see, this is a full screen mail environment, with on-line help. There are many setup values which can be set with options, or by editing the elmrc file in your subdirectory .elm .
To send a message from within elm:
Command: m
To: smith
Subject: Test
Elm will then put you into the editor you have specified in your options, either 'emacs' or 'vi' (see chapter on Editors). You finish by saving your file (command is specific to the editor), and Elm will prompt you to Send the message: a return will send it, your other options that are listed are:
Choose e)dit message, h)eaders, s)end, c)opy file, or f)orget
Choosing e will let you further edit the message, h will let you change the headers (ie. who you are sending it to), s will send the message, c will put a copy of the message into a file for you, and f will cancel the message.
You can also send mail via Elm from your prompt:
lepus% elm smith
and then follow the sequence as above.
PINE: a Program for Internet News and Email (although I've heard it really stands for "Pine Is Not Elm"!!) - is a screen oriented message handling tool. Helpful hints are always located at the bottom of the screen. Pine begins with a Main Menu:
PINE 3.91 MAIN MENU Folder: INBOX 0 Messages
? HELP - Get help using Pine
C COMPOSE MESSAGE - Compose and send a message
I FOLDER INDEX - View messages in current folder
L FOLDER LIST - Select a folder to view
A ADDRESS BOOK - Update address book
S SETUP - Configure or update Pine
Q QUIT - Exit the Pine program
Copyright 1989-1994. PINE is a trademark of the University of Washington.
[Folder "INBOX" opened with 0 messages]
? Help P PrevCmd R RelNotes
O OTHER CMDS L [ListFldrs] N NextCmd K KBLock
PINE: Reading a message
To read a message, type I for folder index. This will display
a list of all the messages in your INBOX. You merely highlight the
message you want to read, and press enter. Type I to return to the
list.
PINE: Sending a message
To send a message in PINE, type c for Compose. This will bring up
the following screen:
To : scott@lepus.astro Cc : Attchmnt: Subject : test ----- Message Text ----- This is a test message ^G Get Help ^X Send ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg ^K Cut Text ^O Postpone ^C Cancel ^J Justify ^W Where is ^V Next Pg ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell
Type in the destination address in the 'To' line, and any CC's or the Subject line, then proceed to type in your Message. When you are done, type ^X (control X) to send the message. You will then be asked if you really want to send the message. Answer Y or N.
Mailtool is the graphical mail reader commonly used under SunOS OpenWindows. It can be used by anyone with access to a workstation console, a PC with X-Windows capability, or an X-Terminal. Like most GUI programs it is managed by navigating through various menu items with the mouse. Whether you use it or not depends on your preference for or against graphical programs. It is intuitive to use and contains all of the features of a sophisticated mail reader. To start mailtool from the terminal, type:
lepus% /usr/openwin/bin/mailtool &
If you intend to use mailtool frequently, add /usr/openwin/bin to your path. Then you can simply type "mailtool" to start the program. If you are starting mailtool from a PC or a remote workstation, add the "-display mycomputer:0" parameter to redirect output to your local screen, where "mycomputer" is the name of your PC or workstation.
After you have started mailtool, a message display window appears showing a list of your incoming messages. Double-click with the left mouse button on any item in the list to open a View Message window and read the contents of the message. When you have finished reading your mail, double click on the top left corner of the View Message window to close.
On the main mailtool window, click with the right mouse button on the "Compose" menu item, then select "New". This will open a Compose Message window. After completing the "To:" line, and optionally the "Subject:" and "Cc:" lines, write your message. When done, click on the "Deliver" menu item with the right mouse button and then select "Quit window" to send the message and close the Compose Message window.
It is easy to organize old messages with mailtool by using folders. Type the name of the folder on the "Mail File" near the top right of the main mailtool window. Then either use the "Move" or "Copy" menu items to add the incoming message to that folder. If the folder does not exist, mailtool will create it, otherwise the message is appended to the existing folder. To retrieve an existing folder without typing its name on the "Mail File" line, click on the small downward triangle to select from the list existing folders.
Interactive Communications: Talk, Write
As well as the mail program there are a few more programs which enable you to communicate with other users. These programs are called electronic messages a nd they are talk and write.
Talk can be used to converse with another user who is on your machine or on a machine on the local network. To reach another user just type talk, followed by their username: eg. talk smith Talk will either give you the message that the other user is not logged on, or will 'ring' the other user until he acknowledges your call. When the user answers your call, you will get the message: [Connection established]. You exit from 'talk' with a ^C
'write' is more restrictive than 'talk'. You can only reach users on your machine and 'write' does not use the entire screen. To reach someone just type write username Then you type your message, and when finished type ^D
What if you want to send mail to a user, but you are unsure what the correct username is? You can use the command 'finger' to try to figure out the correct username. For example, if you wanted to mail to John Smith, but weren't sure what his user name was, you could try finger john .
lepus% finger john
Login name: smith In real life: John Smith
Directory: /vu/smith Shell: /bin/tcsh
Last login Tue Jan 5 09:27 on ttyp5 from xanthippe.astro
Mail last read Tue Jan 5 09:27:55 1993
No Plan.
This tells you that John Smith's username (Login name) is smith.
You can also finger users on other local computers in this manner: finger smith@lynx.astro For computers that do not have dns lookup (i.e. lepus), you must use the computer's Internet Address instead of its name, for example finger smith@128.100.89.1 But be aware that you always mail to the computer name, never the number!!!!