.TH MAIL 1
.SH NAME
mail \-  mail and mailboxes
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B mail
[
.I arg ...
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
Mail is a shell script that invokes
.IR nedmail (1),
the mail reader,
when no recipients appear on the command line and
.IR marshal (1),
the mail preparer,
otherwise.
All command line options are passed through.
See the man pages for those two commands for
more details.
.PP
Incoming mail for a user
.I username
is put in the file
.BI /mail/box/ username /mbox
unless either the file
.BI /mail/box/ username /forward
or
.BI /mail/box/ username /pipeto
exists.
The mailbox must have append-only and exclusive-access mode
(see
.IR chmod (1)).
A user must create his or her own mailbox using the
.B -c
option of
.IR nedmail (1).
Mailboxes are created writable (append-only) but not readable by others.
.PP
If the file
.BI /mail/box/ username /forward
exists and is readable by everyone, incoming mail
will be forwarded to the addresses contained in the first line of the file.
The file may contain multiple addresses.
Forwarding loops are caught and resolved by local delivery.
.PP
If the file
.BI /mail/box/ username /pipeto
exists and is readable and executable by everyone,
it will be run for each incoming message for the user.
The message will be piped to it rather
than appended to his/her mail box.
The file is run as user
.BR none .
It's two arguments are the 
with arguments of the destination address
(e.g.
.BR local!gremlin )
and the user's mail box path
(e.g.
.BR /mail/box/gremlin/mbox )
.SH FILES
.TF /mail/box/*/dead.letter
.TP
.B /sys/log/mail
mail log file
.TP
.B /mail/box/*
mail directories
.TP
.B /mail/box/*/mbox
mailbox files
.TP
.B /mail/box/*/forward
forwarding address(es)
.TP
.B /mail/box/*/pipeto
mail filter
.TP
.B /mail/box/*/L.reading
mutual exclusion lock for multiple mbox readers
.TP
.B /mail/box/*/L.mbox
mutual exclusion lock for altering mbox
.TP
.B /lib/face/48x48x?
directories of icons for
.I seemail
.SH SOURCE
.TP
.B /rc/bin/mail
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR aliasmail (8),
.IR faces (1),
.IR filter (1),
.IR marshal (1),
.IR mlmgr (1),
.IR nedmail (1),
.IR qer (8),
.IR rewrite (6),
.IR send (8),
.IR smtp (8),
.IR upasfs (4)