VACATION(1)
NAME
vacation -- return ``I am not here'' indication
SYNOPSIS
vacation -i [-r interval] vacation -l vacation -x vacation [-a alias] [-d] [-f db] [-m msg] [-j] [-z] login
DESCRIPTION
- 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
.forward file. For example, your .forward file might have: - \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''.
- Available options:
- -a alias
- Handle messages for alias in the same manner as those received for the user's login name.
- -d Print messages to stderr instead of syslog.
- -f db Uses db as the database file.
- -m msg Uses msg as the message file.
- -j Reply to the message even if our address cannot be found in the
- ``To:'' or ``Cc:'' headers. This option is very dangerous and
should be used with extreme care. - -z Set the envelope sender of the reply message to ``<>''.
- -i Initialize the vacation database files. It should be used before
- you modify your .forward file.
- -r Set the reply interval to interval days. The default is one
- week. An interval of ``0'' means that a reply is sent to each
message, and an interval of ``infinite'' (actually, any nonnumeric character) will never send more than one reply. It
should be noted that intervals of ``0'' are quite dangerous, as
it allows mailers to get into ``I am on vacation'' loops. - -x Reads a list of addresses from standard input, one per line, and
- adds them to the vacation database. Mail coming from these
excluded addresses will not get a reply. Whole domains can be
excluded using the syntax ``@domain''. - -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.
- When started without arguments, vacation will guide the user through the configuration process.
- No message will be sent unless login (or an alias supplied using the -a
option) is part of either the ``To:'' or ``Cc:'' headers of the mail. No
messages from ``???-REQUEST'', ``Postmaster'', ``UUCP'', ``MAILER'', or
``MAILER-DAEMON'' will be replied to (where these strings are case insensitive) nor is a notification sent if a ``Precedence: bulk'',
``Precedence: list'' or ``Precedence: junk'' line is included in the mail headers. The people who have sent you messages are maintained as a db(3) database in the file .vacation.db in your home directory. - vacation 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 contain:
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 - Any occurrence of the string $SUBJECT in .vacation.msg will be replaced by the subject of the message that triggered the vacation program.
- vacation reads the incoming message from standard input, checking the
message headers for either the UNIX ``From'' line or a ``Return-Path''
header to determine the sender. If both are present the sender from the ``Return-Path'' header is used. Sendmail(8) includes this ``From'' line automatically. - Fatal errors, such as calling vacation with incorrect arguments, or with non-existent logins, are logged on the standard error output and in the system log file, using syslog(3).
DIAGNOSTICS
The vacation utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
FILES
~/.vacation.db database file
~/.vacation.msg message to send
~/.forward
SEE ALSO
aliases(5,) sendmail(8), syslogd(8)
HISTORY
The vacation command appeared in 4.3BSD.
AUTHOR
- vacation was developed by Eric Allman and the University of California,
Berkeley in 1983.
This version is maintained by Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it> and contains
code taken from the three free BSD and some patches applied to a linux
port.