NAME
vacation —
return “I am not
here” indication
SYNOPSIS
vacation |
-dIi [-f
databasefile]
[-m
messagefile]
[-r
interval]
[-t
interval] |
vacation |
-dj [-a
alias] [-F
F|R|S] [-f
databasefile]
[-m
messagefile]
[-s
sender]
[-T A|D]
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
- Turn debugging on; don't send an actual message, but print
it on stdout.
-
-
- -f
database_file
- Use the specified database_file
prefix and append
.db
to it instead of
$HOME/.vacation.db
.
-
-
- -F
F|R|S
- Make vacation additionally look in From:
(F), Return-Path: (R), or Sender: (S) headers to determine the From:
field.
-
-
- -i
-
- -I
- Initialize the vacation database files. It should be used
before you modify your .forward file.
-
-
- -j
- Do not check if the recipient is present in the
To:
or Cc:
lines. Usage of
this option is strongly discouraged because it will result in
vacation replying to mailing lists or other
inappropriate places (e.g., messages that you have been
Bcc
to).
-
-
- -m
message_file
- Use message_file instead of
$HOME/.vacation.msg
.
-
-
- -s
sender
- Reply to sender instead of the value
read from the message.
-
-
- -r
interval
-
- -t
interval
- Set the reply interval to interval
days. If the interval number is followed by
w
, d
,
h
, m
, or
s
then the number is interpreted as weeks, days,
hours, minutes, or seconds respectively. The default
interval is one week. An
interval of “0” means that a reply is
sent to each message, and an interval of
“infinite
” (actually, any non-numeric
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.
-
-
- -T
A|D
- Make vacation additionally look in
Apparently-To: (A) or Delivered-To: (D) headers to determine the To:
field.
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). If the message contains the
string
$SUBJECT
then it will will be replaced with the
subject of the original message. For example, it might contain:
From: eric@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Eric Allman)
Subject: I am on vacation
Delivered-By-The-Graces-Of: The Vacation program
Precedence: bulk
I am on vacation until July 22.
Your mail regarding "$SUBJECT" will be read when I return.
If you have something urgent, please contact Keith Bostic
<bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU>.
--eric
vacation reads the first line from the standard input for a
UNIX “From” line to determine the sender.
sendmail(1) includes this
“From” line automatically.
Fatal errors, such as calling
vacation with incorrect
arguments, or with non-existent
logins, are logged in the system
log file, using
syslog(3).
FILES
- ~/.vacation.db
- database file
- ~/.vacation.msg
- message to send
SEE ALSO
syslog(3),
sendmail(1)
HISTORY
The
vacation command appeared in
4.3BSD.
BUGS
Adding
-t A or
-t
D should only be done for misconfigured or non-compliant
MTAs. Doing so may auto-respond to messages that were not supposed to be
replied to.