vacation.1 (2010 09)

v
vacation(1) vacation(1)
NAME
vacation - return "I am not here" indication
SYNOPSIS
vacation -i
vacation [-a alias ]... login
DESCRIPTION
The
vacation program returns a message to the sender of a message telling them that you are
currently not reading your mail. The intended use is in a
.forward file in $HOME. For example, your
.forward file might contain:
\eric, "|/usr/bin/vacation -a allman eric"
which would send messages to you (assuming your login name was
eric) and reply to any messages for
eric or allman. The \ preceding
eric is required to force direct delivery to eric’s mailbox and
prevent an infinite loop through the
.forward file. The double quotes are needed to tell sendmail (1M)
to treat the enclosed as a unit, rather than separate recipients. It is also important to specify the full
path for the vacation program, and there must be no white space between the
| character and the start of
the path name.
No message is sent unless login or an alias supplied using the
-a option is a substring of either the
To:
or Cc: headers of the mail. No messages from ???-REQUEST, Postmaster, UUCP, MAILER,or
MAILER-DAEMON are replied to, nor is a notification sent if a
Precedence: bulk or Precedence:
junk line is included in the mail headers. Only one message per week is sent to each unique sender (at
each unique host system). The people who have sent you messages are recorded in a database in the files
.vacation.pag and .vacation.dir
in your home directory.
The
vacation program expects a file .vacation.msg
, in your home directory, containing a message
to be sent back to each sender. It should be an entire message (including headers). For example, it might
say:
>From: [e-mail] (Eric Allman)
Subject: I am on vacation
X-Delivered-By-The-Graces-Of: The vacation program
Precedence: bulk
I am on vacation until July 22. If you have something urgent,
please contact Joe Kalash <[e-mail]>.
--eric
Header lines in this file must be left-aligned and must not be preceded by any other lines, including blank
lines (see sendmail (1M)). If there is no
.vacation.msg
file, vacation uses the following file (if it
exists):
/usr/share/lib/vacation.def
Otherwise, it logs an error.
vacation reads the first line from the standard input (the incoming mail message in the example
.forward file above) for a UNIX style From line to determine the sender. sendmail (1M) includes this
From line automatically, and its absence indicates non-mail input.
Options
The
vacation program supports the following options:
-i Initializes the vacation database files. This option should be used before modifying
a .forward file.
-a alias Identifies another name that can legitimately appear in the To: line of the mail
header instead of your login name. More than one -a option can be specified.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
LANG determines the language in which error messages are printed.
HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1