15.6.4 To Address Mail
over a BNU or UUCP Link
Mail is stored in different ways depending on specific
situation as shown in +++XRef id=25594+++. The mail program uses the following
type of mailboxes or folders:
-
System Mailbox
This
resides in /var/spool/mail directory and each system
mailbox is named by the user ID associated with it. For example, if the user ID
is smith, the system mailbox is /var/spool/mail/smith. When the mail arrives
for any user ID, it is placed in the respective system mailbox. The shell
checks for the new mail and issues the following message when the user logs in:
YOU HAVE NEW MAIL
-
Personal Mailbox
Each
user has a personal mailbox. When the mail is read using
the mail command by the user, and if it is not saved in a file or
deleted, it is written to user's personal mailbox, $HOME/mbox ($HOME is the
default login directory). For a user ID smith, the personal mailbox is
/home/smith/mbox.
-
dead.letter File
If the user interrupts the message being created to complete some other tasks,
the system saves the incomplete message in the dead.letter file in the user's
home directory ($HOME). For a user ID smith, /home/smith/dead.letter is the
dead.letter file.
-
Folders
To
save message in an organized fashion, users can use
folders. Messages can be put into a user's personal folder from system mailbox
or personal mailbox as shown in +++XRef id=25594+++.
The mail
command can be used with various flags as shown below:
-
mail
- Displays the system mailbox.
-
mail -f
- Displays your personal mailbox (mbox).
-
mail -f+folder
- Displays a mail folder.
-
mail user@address
- Addresses a message to the specified user.
Figure 143: Message Path for Mail
15.8 Mail Administrator's
Reference