V3.

1
Student Notebook

Uempty finger command

The finger command has a default format which displays: Full user name, login time,
user's $HOME directory and user's login shell.
You can use your own username with the finger command to find out information
about yourself.

Unit 2. Using the System 2-13

Student Notebook

Sending Mail

$ mail team01
Subject: Meeting
There will be a brief announcement meeting today in
room 602 at noon.
<Ctrl-d>
Cc: <Enter>
$

$ mail team20@sys2
Subject: Don't Forget!
Don't forget about the meeting today!
<Ctrl-d>
Cc: <Enter>
$

Figure 2-10. Sending Mail

Notes:

Introduction
The mail command is an interactive command used to send and receive mail
messages.

Sending a message
To send a message, invoke the command by passing it valid user IDs. If more than one
name is given, the names must be separated from each other with a blank space.
Next the prompt Subject: will automatically be displayed. The sender should fill in this
field with one line of text which closely describes the contents of the mail body. This is
the line which will appear in the recipient's list of incoming mail.
After the subject line, the note body should then be entered, and once complete, press
a <Ctrl-d> on the next available blank line.
Note: This must be the first and only character on that line. This is the end of file marker.

2-14 AIX 7 Basics

V3.1
Student Notebook

Uempty The Cc: prompt (denoting carbon copy) will then be displayed, which can be left blank,
or a string of user IDs can be entered.
After the last prompt, the shell prompt should be displayed.

Sending mail to other systems

When sending mail to another user on your same system, enter mail <username>. To
send mail to a user on another computer system, it is necessary to indicate the name
(the host name) of that computer. For example,
mail <username>@<hostname>

Unit 2. Using the System 2-15

Student Notebook

Receiving Mail
[YOU HAVE NEW MAIL][YOU HAVE NEW MAIL]
$$ mailmail
MailMail [5.2 UCB] [AIX5.X] Type ? for help[5.2 UCB] [AIX5.X] Type ? for help
"/var/spool/mail/team01": 2 messages 1 new"/var/spool/mail/team01": 2 messages
1 new
UU 1 team051 team05 Tue Jan 7Tue Jan 10/267 "Hello !"10/267 "Hello !"
7 10:5010:50
16/311 "Meeting"16/311 "Meeting"
>N 2 team02>N 2 team02 Wed Jan 8Wed
Jan 8 11:2511:25
?? t 2 t 2
From team02 Wed Jan 8 11:25 2003From
team02 Wed Jan 8 11:25 2003
Date: Wed 8 Jan 2003 11:25Date: Wed 8
Jan 2003 11:25
From: team02From: team02
To: team01To: team01
Subject: MeetingSubject: Meeting
Cc:Cc:
There will be a brief announcement meeting today in room 602 at noon.There
will be a brief announcement meeting today in room 602 at noon.

?? dd (Delete message)(Delete message)

?? qq (Quit mail command)(Quit mail command)

Figure 2-11. Receiving Mail

Notes:

Introduction
The user is informed that new mail items have arrived when the [YOU HAVE NEW MAIL]
message is displayed. This message does not get automatically displayed as soon as
the incoming mail arrives. The shell does a check on all the mailboxes by default once
every 600 seconds. If it detects a new piece of mail, then it displays the message (which
itself can be customized by the system administrator).

Receiving mail
To receive the mail items use the mail command without any options. It will list header
information and a one line description for each unread item followed by the prompt ?.
This is different from the shell prompt. AIX uses the ? as the mail subsystem prompt.

2-16 AIX 7 Basics