Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!mips!atha!aupair.cs.athabascau.ca!lyndon From: lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: SMail and biff Keywords: smail, biff, comsat Message-ID: Date: 21 May 91 21:28:10 GMT References: <2989@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> <1991May18.043542.27251@Veritas.COM> <22812@shlump.lkg.dec.com> Organization: Athabasca University Lines: 18 lan_csse@netrix.nac.dec.com (CSSE LAN Test Account) writes: >What biff does is wake up periodically and check the mtime for your >mail file (/usr/spool/mail/$USER). Test this by: > echo Hi there >> /usr/spool/mail/$USER >and sit back and wait. After a couple of minutes, biff will tell you >that you have new mail. Huh? Biff (more properly, comsatd) waits for messages (on udp port 512) from your MTA. Upon receipt of a delivery notification from the MTA, it attempts to notify the user that mail has arrived. If your biff behaves like you say it does, it's not the biff that the rest of us run (derived from BSD). -- Lyndon Nerenberg VE6BBM / Computing Services / Athabasca University atha!cs.athabascau.ca!lyndon || lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca Packet: ve6bbm@ve6mc.ab.can.noam As a math athiest, I should be excused from this. --Calvin