Manual Pages for UNIX Darwin command on man msgs

MSGS(1) BSD General Commands Manual MSGS(1)

NAME

mmssggss - system messages and junk mail program

SYNOPSIS

mmssggss [-ffhhllppqq] [number] [-number]

mmssggss [-ss]

mmssggss [-cc] [-days]

DESCRIPTION

The mmssggss utility is used to read system messages. These messages are

sent by mailing to the login `msgs' and should be short pieces of infor-

mation which are suitable to be read once by most users of the system. The mmssggss utility is normally invoked each time you login, by placing it in the file .login (or .profile if you use sh(1)). It will then prompt

you with the source and subject of each new message. If there is no sub-

ject line, the first few non-blank lines of the message will be dis-

played. If there is more to the message, you will be told how long it is and asked whether you wish to see the rest of the message. The possible responses are:

-yy Type the rest of the message.

RREETTUURRNN Synonym for y.

-nn Skip this message and go on to the next message.

- Redisplay the last message.

-qq Drop out of mmssggss; the next time mmssggss will pick up where it

last left off.

-ss Append the current message to the file ``Messages'' in the

current directory; `s-' will save the previously displayed

message. A `s' or `s-' may be followed by a space and a file

name to receive the message replacing the default ``Mes-

sages''.

-mm A copy of the specified message is placed in a temporary

mailbox and mail(1) is invoked on that mailbox. Both `m' and

`s' accept a numeric argument in place of the `-'.

The mmssggss utility keeps track of the next message you will see by a number

in the file .msgsrc in your home directory. In the directory /var/msgs

it keeps a set of files whose names are the (sequential) numbers of the

messages they represent. The file /var/msgs/bounds shows the low and

high number of the messages in the directory so that mmssggss can quickly determine if there are no messages for you. If the contents of bounds is incorrect it can be fixed by removing it; mmssggss will make a new bounds

file the next time it is run with the -ss option. If mmssggss is run with any

option other than -ss, an error will be displayed if /var/msgs/bounds does

not exist.

The -ss option is used for setting up the posting of messages. The line

msgs: "| /usr/bin/msgs -s"

should be included in /etc/mail/aliases (see newaliases(1)) to enable posting of messages.

The -cc option is used for performing cleanup on /var/msgs. A shell

script entry to run mmssggss with the -cc option should be placed in

/etc/periodic/daily (see periodic(8)) to run every night. This will remove all messages over 21 days old. A different expiration may be specified on the command line to override the default. You must be the superuser to use this option. Options when reading messages include:

-ff Do not say ``No new messages.''. This is useful in a .login

file since this is often the case here.

-qq Queries whether there are messages, printing ``There are new

messages.'' if there are. The command ``msgs -q'' is often

used in login scripts.

-hh Print the first part of messages only.

-ll Cause only locally originated messages to be reported.

num A message number can be given on the command line, causing mmssggss to start at the specified message rather than at the

next message indicated by your .msgsrc file. Thus

msgs -h 1

prints the first part of all messages.

-number Start number messages back from the one indicated in the

.msgsrc file, useful for reviews of recent messages.

-pp Pipe long messages through more(1).

Within mmssggss you can also go to any specific message by typing its number when mmssggss requests input as to what to do. ENVIRONMENT The mmssggss utility uses the HOME and TERM environment variables for the default home directory and terminal type. FILES