freebsd/usr.bin/vacation/vacation.1

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.\"	From: @(#)vacation.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/16/93
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd June 16, 1993
.Dt VACATION 1
.Os BSD 4.3
.Sh NAME
.Nm vacation
.Nd return ``I am not here'' indication
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm vacation
.Op Fl d
.Fl i
.Op Fl r Ar interval
.Nm vacation
.Op Fl d
.Fl l
.Nm vacation
.Op Fl d
.Op Fl a Ar alias
.Ar login
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm Vacation
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
.Pa .forward
file.  For example, your
.Pa .forward
file might have:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
\eeric, "|/usr/bin/vacation -a allman eric"
.Ed
which would send messages to you (assuming your login name was eric) and
reply to any messages for
.Dq eric
or
.Dq allman .
.Pp
Available options:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl a Ar alias
Handle messages for
.Ar alias
in the same manner as those received for the user's
login name.
.It Fl d
Enable debugging mode.
See below.
.It Fl i
Initialize the vacation database files.  It should be used
before you modify your
.Pa .forward
file.
.It Fl r
Set the reply interval to
.Ar interval
days.  The default is one week.  An interval of
.Dq 0
means that
a reply is sent to each message, and an interval of
.Dq Li infinite
(actually, any non-numeric character) will never send more than
one reply.  It should be noted that intervals of
.Dq Li \&0
are quite
dangerous, as it allows mailers to get into
.Dq I am on vacation
loops.
.It Fl l
Print the contents of the vacation database files.  For each entry,
the address the reply has been sent to and the associated time will
be printed to standard output.
.El
.Pp
No message will be sent unless
.Ar login
(or an
.Ar alias
supplied using the
.Fl a
option) is part of either the
.Dq To:
or
.Dq Cc:
headers of the mail.
No messages from
.Dq ???-REQUEST ,
.Dq Postmaster ,
.Dq Tn UUCP ,
.Dq MAILER ,
or
.Dq MAILER-DAEMON
will be replied to (where these strings are
case insensitive) nor is a notification sent if a
.Dq Precedence: bulk
or
.Dq Precedence: junk
line is included in the mail headers.
The people who have sent you messages are maintained as a
.Xr hash 3
database in the file
.Pa .vacation.db
in your home directory.
.Pp
.Nm Vacation
expects a file
.Pa .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 contain:
.Pp
.Bd -unfilled -offset indent -compact
From: eric@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Eric Allman)
Subject: I am on vacation
Delivered-By-The-Graces-Of: The Vacation program
Precedence: bulk

I am on vacation until July 22.  If you have something urgent,
please contact Keith Bostic <bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU>.
--eric
.Ed
.Pp
.Nm Vacation
reads the first line from the standard input for a
.Ux
.Dq From
line to determine the sender.
.Xr Sendmail 8
includes this
.Dq From
line automatically.
.Pp
Fatal errors, such as calling
.Nm vacation
with incorrect arguments, or with non-existent
.Ar login Ns Ar s ,
are logged in the system log file, using
.Xr syslog 3
unless debugging mode is enabled with the
.Fl d
option, in which case they are written to the standard error output.
.Pp
Building on the example provided above, you might choose to have errors
redirected to a file while you are testing vacation's operation with
the following in your 
.Pa .forward
file:
.Pp
.Bd -literal -offset indent
\eeric, "|/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/vacation -d -a allman eric' 2>/home/eric/.vacation.log"
.Ed
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
The
.Nm
utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width "vacation.dirxxx" -compact
.It Pa ~/.vacation.db
database file
.It Pa ~/.vacation.msg
message to send
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr syslog 3 ,
.Xr sendmail 8 ,
.Xr syslogd 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm vacation
command appeared in
.Bx 4.3 .