1 .\"@ nail.1 - S-nail(1) reference manual.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2000-2008 Gunnar Ritter, Freiburg i. Br., Germany.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012 - 2017 Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>.
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34 .\"@ S-nail(1): v14.9.0-pre3 / 2016-12-31
36 .ds VV \\%v14.9.0-pre3
46 .\" If not ~/.mailrc, it breaks POSIX compatibility. And adjust main.c.
51 .ds OU [no v15-compat]
52 .ds ID [v15 behaviour may differ]
53 .ds NQ [Only new quoting rules]
64 .Nd send and receive Internet mail
70 .\" Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"SYNOPSIS, main()
78 .Op Fl a Ar attachment
81 .Op Fl M Ar type | Fl m Ar file | Fl q Ar file | Fl t
83 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
88 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
97 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
100 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
108 .Op Fl L Ar spec-list
109 .Op Fl r Ar from-addr
110 .Op Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value
113 .Op Fl Fl \~ Ns Ar mta-option ...
118 .Mx -toc -tree html pdf ps xhtml
121 .\" .Sh DESCRIPTION {{{
124 .Bd -filled -compact -offset indent
125 .Sy Compatibility note:
126 S-nail (\*(UA) will wrap up into \%S-mailx in v15.0 (circa 2018).
127 Backward incompatibility has to be expected \(en
130 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
131 rules, for example, and shell metacharacters will become meaningful.
132 New and old behaviour is flagged \*(IN and \*(OU, and setting
135 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
136 will choose new behaviour when applicable.
137 \*(OB flags what will vanish, and enabling
141 enables obsoletion warnings.
145 \*(UA provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and
147 It is intended to provide the functionality of the POSIX
149 command, but is MIME capable and optionally offers extensions for
150 line editing, S/MIME, SMTP and POP3, among others.
151 \*(UA divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows
152 the user to deal with them in any order.
156 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
157 for manipulating messages and sending mail.
158 It provides the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition
159 of outgoing messages, and increasingly powerful and reliable
160 non-interactive scripting capabilities.
162 .\" .Ss "Options" {{{
165 .Bl -tag -width ".It Fl BaNg"
168 Explicitly control which of the
170 shall be loaded: if the letter
172 is (case-insensitively) part of the
176 is loaded, likewise the letter
178 controls loading of the user's personal
180 file, whereas the letters
184 explicitly forbid loading of any resource files.
185 This option should be used by scripts: to avoid environmental noise they
188 from any configuration files and create a script-local environment,
189 explicitly setting any of the desired
190 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
193 This option overrides
200 command for the given user email
202 after program startup is complete (all resource files are loaded, any
204 setting is being established; only
206 commands have not been evaluated yet).
207 Being a special incarnation of
209 macros for the purpose of bundling longer-lived settings, activating
210 such an email account also switches to the accounts
212 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
217 .It Fl a Ar file Ns Op Ar =input-charset Ns Op Ar #output-charset
220 to the message (for compose mode opportunities refer to
224 .Sx "Filename transformations"
227 will be performed, but shell word expansion is restricted to the tilde
231 not be accessible but contain a
233 character, then anything before the
235 will be used as the filename, anything thereafter as a character set
238 If an input character set is specified,
239 .Mx -ix "character set specification"
240 but no output character set, then the given input character set is fixed
241 as-is, and no conversion will be applied;
242 giving the special string hyphen-minus
244 will be treated as if
246 has been specified (the default).
247 If an output character set has also been given then the conversion will
248 be performed exactly as specified and on-the-fly, not considering the
249 file's type and content.
250 As an exception, if the output character set is specified as hyphen-minus
252 then the default conversion algorithm (see
253 .Sx "Character sets" )
254 is applied (therefore no conversion is performed on-the-fly,
256 will be MIME-classified and its contents will be inspected first).
257 It is an error to specify anything but
259 if no character set conversion is available
261 does not include the term
266 (\*(OB: \*(UA will always use line-buffered output, to gain
267 line-buffered input even in batch mode enable batch mode via
272 Send a blind carbon copy to
274 ess, if the setting of
277 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
279 The option may be used multiple times.
281 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
285 Send carbon copies to the given receiver, if so allowed by
287 May be used multiple times.
292 the internal variable
294 which enables debug messages and disables message delivery,
295 among others; effectively turns almost any operation into a dry-run.
301 and thus discard messages with an empty message part body.
302 This command line option is \*(OB.
306 Just check if mail is present (in the specified or system
308 if yes, return an exit status of zero, a non-zero value otherwise.
309 To restrict the set of mails to consider in this evaluation a message
310 specification can be added with the option
315 Save the message to send in a file named after the local part of the
316 first recipient's address (instead of in
321 Read in the contents of the user's
323 (or the specified file) for processing;
324 when \*(UA is quit, it writes undeleted messages back to this file
330 argument will undergo some special
331 .Sx "Filename transformations"
336 is not a argument to the flag
338 but is instead taken from the command line after option processing has
342 that starts with a hyphen-minus, prefix with a relative path, as in
343 .Ql ./-hyphenbox.mbox .
347 Display a summary of the
349 of all messages in the specified mailbox or system
352 A configurable summary view is available via the
358 Show a short usage summary.
359 Because of widespread use a
361 argument will have the same effect.
367 to ignore tty interrupt signals.
370 .It Fl L Ar spec-list
371 Display a summary of all
373 of only those messages in the specified mailbox or the system
379 .Sx "Specifying messages"
386 option has been given in addition no header summary is produced,
387 but \*(UA will instead indicate via its exit status whether
393 note that any verbose output is suppressed in this mode and must instead
394 be enabled explicitly (e.g., by using the option
399 Special send mode that will flag standard input with the MIME
403 and use it as the main message body.
404 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
405 .Va message-inject-head ,
408 .Va message-inject-tail .
414 Special send mode that will MIME classify the specified
416 and use it as the main message body.
417 \*(ID Using this option will bypass processing of
418 .Va message-inject-head ,
421 .Va message-inject-tail .
427 inhibit the initial display of message headers when reading mail or
428 editing a mail folder by calling
430 for the internal variable
435 Standard flag that inhibits reading the system wide
440 allows more control over the startup sequence; also see
441 .Sx "Resource files" .
445 Special send mode that will initialize the message body with the
446 contents of the specified
448 which may be standard input
450 only in non-interactive context.
456 Any folder opened will be in read-only mode.
460 .It Fl r Ar from-addr
461 The source address that appears in the
464 header of a message (or in the
467 header if the former contains multiple addresses) is not used for
468 relaying and delegating a message over the wire via SMTP, but instead an
469 envelope will enwrap the message content and provide the necessary
470 information (i.e., the RFC 5321 reverse-path, also used to report, e.g.,
471 delivery errors) to transmit the message to its destination(s).
472 Whereas said headers and internal variables will be used by \*(UA to
473 create the envelope if the builtin SMTP
475 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) is used, a file-based MTA will instead use the
476 identity of the message-originating user.
478 This command line option can be used to specify the reverse-path, to be
479 passed to a file-based
481 when a message is sent, via
482 .Ql -f Ar from-addr .
485 include a user name, then the address components will be separated and
486 the name part will be passed to a file-based
492 is also assigned to the internal variable
494 Many default installations and sites disallow explicit overriding of the
495 user identity which could be adjusted by this option, unless either
497 has been configured accordingly, or the user is member of a group with
498 special privileges, respectively.
500 If an empty string is passed as
502 then the content of the variable
504 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
506 will be evaluated and used for this purpose whenever the file-based
509 Note that \*(UA by default, without
511 that is, neither passes
515 command line options to a file-based MTA by itself, unless this
516 automatic deduction is enforced by
518 ing the internal variable
519 .Va r-option-implicit .
523 .It Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns value
527 iable and, in case of a non-boolean variable which has a value, assign
531 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
535 may be overwritten from within resource files,
536 the command line setting will be reestablished after all resource files
541 Specify the subject of the message to be sent.
542 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
543 normalized to space (SP) characters.
547 The message given (on standard input) is expected to contain, separated
548 from the message body by an empty line, a message header with
553 fields giving its recipients, which will be added to any recipients
554 specified on the command line.
555 If a message subject is specified via
557 then it will be used in favour of one given on the command line.
573 .Ql Mail-Followup-To: ,
574 by default created automatically dependent on message context, will
575 be used if specified (a special address massage will however still occur
577 Any other custom header field (also see
580 is passed through entirely
581 unchanged, and in conjunction with the option
583 it is possible to embed
584 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
592 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
595 appropriate privileges presumed; effectively identical to
605 will also show the list of
607 .Ql $ \*(uA -Xversion -Xx .
612 ting the internal variable
614 enables display of some informational context messages.
615 Using it twice increases the level of verbosity.
619 Add the given (or multiple for a multiline argument)
621 to the list of commands to be executed,
622 as a last step of program startup, before normal operation starts.
623 This is the only possibility to execute commands in non-interactive mode
624 when reading startup files is actively prohibited.
625 The commands will be evaluated as a unit, just as via
627 but different to that errors won't stop evaluation.
631 .Va batch-exit-on-error .
636 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
637 even if not in interactive mode.
638 This can be used to, e.g., automatically format the composed message
639 text before sending the message:
640 .Bd -literal -offset indent
641 $ ( echo 'line one. Word. Word2.'; \e
642 echo '~| /usr/bin/fmt -tuw66' ) |\e
643 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -Sttycharset=utf-8 -d~ bob@exam.ple
649 In batch mode the full set of commands is available, just like in
650 interactive mode, standard input is made line buffered, and diverse
651 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
652 are adjusted for batch necessities, e.g., it
668 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
669 is enabled in compose mode.
670 The following prepares an email message in a batched dry run:
671 .Bd -literal -offset indent
672 $ LC_ALL=C printf 'm bob\en~s ubject\enText\en~.\enx\en' | \e
673 LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ -d# -X'alias bob bob@exam.ple'
678 This flag forces termination of option processing in order to prevent
681 It also forcefully puts \*(UA into send mode, see
682 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" .
690 argument, as well as all receivers established by the command line options
694 are subject to checks established via
697 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
699 .Op Ar mta-option ...
701 arguments that are given at the end of the command line after a
703 separator will be passed through to a file-based
705 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) and persist for an entire (interactive) session
706 \(en if the setting of the internal variable
708 allows their recognition; no such constraints apply to the variable
712 .\" .Ss "A starter" {{{
715 \*(UA is a direct descendant of
717 Mail, a successor of the Research
720 .Dq was there from the start
723 It thus represents the user side of the
725 mail system, whereas the system side (Mail-Transfer-Agent, MTA) was
726 traditionally taken by
728 and most MTAs provide a binary of this name for compatibility purposes.
733 of \*(UA then the system side is not a mandatory precondition for mail
737 Because \*(UA strives for compliance with POSIX
739 it is likely that some configuration settings have to be adjusted before
740 using it is a smooth experience.
743 resource file bends those standard imposed settings of the
744 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
745 a bit towards more user friendliness and safety, however, e.g., it
750 in order to suppress the automatic moving of messages to
752 that would otherwise occur (see
753 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
756 to not remove empty system (MBOX) mailbox files in order not to mangle
757 file permissions when files eventually get recreated \(en
758 \*(UA will remove all empty (MBOX) mailbox files unless this variable is
761 .Pf ( Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
762 mode has been enabled.
763 The file mode creation mask is explicitly managed via
769 in order to synchronize \*(UA with the exit status report of the used
774 to enter interactive startup even if the initial mailbox is empty,
776 to allow editing of headers as well as
778 to not strip down addresses in compose mode, and
780 to include the message that is being responded to when
785 contains some more complete configuration examples.
788 .\" .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode" {{{
789 .Ss "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
791 To send a message to one or more people, using a local or a builtin
793 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) transport to actually deliver the generated mail
794 message, \*(UA can be invoked with arguments which are the names of
795 people to whom the mail will be sent, and the command line options
799 can be used to add (blind) carbon copy receivers:
801 .Bd -literal -offset indent
803 $ \*(uA -s ubject -a ttach.txt bill@exam.ple
805 # But... try it in an isolated dry-run mode (-d) first
806 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Ssendwait \e
807 -b bcc@exam.ple -c cc@exam.ple \e
808 -. '(Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple>' eric@exam.ple
811 $ LC_ALL=C \*(uA -d -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait \e
812 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
813 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
819 If standard input is a terminal rather than the message to be sent,
820 the user is expected to type in the message contents.
821 In this compose mode \*(UA treats lines beginning with the character
823 special \(en these are so-called
824 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ,
825 which can be used to read in files, process shell commands, add and edit
826 attachments and more; e.g., the command escape
828 will start the text editor to revise the message in its current state,
830 allows editing of the most important message headers, with
832 custom headers can be created (more specifically than with
835 gives an overview of most other available command escapes.
839 at the beginning of an empty line leaves compose mode and causes the
840 message to be sent, whereas typing
843 twice will abort the current letter (saving its contents in the file
849 Messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the variable
851 is set, therefore send errors are not recognizable until then.
857 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
858 can be used to alter default behavior; e.g.,
863 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
865 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content,
867 will cause the user to be prompted actively for carbon-copy recipients
870 will allow leaving compose mode by writing a line consisting solely of
876 hook variables may be set to
878 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
879 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
880 .Va on-compose-done-shell
883 variables, the latter also to be set to a
885 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
886 adjustments are available.
889 Especially for using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
891 it is often necessary to set
895 (even finer control via
896 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
897 which also causes creation of
901 header fields (even if empty) unless
903 is set; saving a copy of sent messages in a
905 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
907 targets the value will undergo
908 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
911 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
912 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
915 contains example configurations for sending messages via some of the
916 well-known public mail providers and also gives a compact overview on
917 how to setup a secure SSL/TLS environment).
922 sandbox dry-run tests first will prove correctness.
926 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
927 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
928 account credentials, the
930 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
933 goes into the details of character encoding and how to use them for
934 representing messages and MIME part contents by specifying them in
936 and reading the section
937 .Sx "The mime.types files"
938 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
939 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
940 Over the wire an intermediate, configurable
941 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
942 may be applied to the raw message part data.
945 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
950 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
951 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
954 is not set then only network addresses (see
956 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
957 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
961 can be used to generate standard compliant network addresses.
963 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
964 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
968 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
969 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
971 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
973 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
974 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
976 or the character sequence dot solidus
978 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
979 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
981 Any other name which contains a commercial at
983 character is treated as a network address;
984 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
986 character specifies a mailbox name;
987 Any other name which contains a solidus
989 character but no exclamation mark
993 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
994 What remains is treated as a network address.
996 .Bd -literal -offset indent
997 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
998 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
999 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
1000 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave \e
1001 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1006 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1008 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1010 and have it go to a group of people.
1011 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
1012 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
1016 and are often tracked in a file
1022 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
1023 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1024 itself; they correlate with the active set of
1031 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
1034 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1036 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1037 environment, ideally with the command line options
1039 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1041 to specify variables:
1043 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1044 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1045 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1046 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1047 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1048 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
1049 -s 'subject' -a attachment_file \e
1050 -. "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>" rec2@exam.ple \e
1055 As shown, scripts can
1057 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1060 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1062 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1063 can be sent by calling the
1065 command with a list of recipient addresses \(em the semantics are
1066 completely identical to non-interactive message sending:
1068 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1069 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1070 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1071 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1072 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1073 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1077 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1078 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1080 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1082 When used like that the user's system
1086 for an in-depth description of the different mailbox types that exist)
1087 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed.
1088 The visual style of this summary of
1090 can be adjusted through the variable
1092 and the possible sorting criterion via
1098 can be performed with the command
1100 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1101 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1110 will give a listing of all available commands and
1112 will give a summary of some common ones.
1113 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1116 and see the actual expansion of
1118 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1119 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1120 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1121 possible to define overwrites with the
1124 These commands can also produce a more
1129 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1130 messages; the current message \(en the
1132 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1133 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1135 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1140 ful of header summaries containing the
1144 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1148 Message content can be displayed with the command
1155 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1157 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1159 the sole difference to the command
1161 which will always use the
1165 will instead only show the first
1167 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1172 By default the current message
1174 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1175 a fancy message specification (see
1176 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1179 will display all unread messages,
1184 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1186 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1190 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1193 (a more substantial alias for
1195 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1196 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1199 .Dl from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1202 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1204 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1205 applications by using the command
1207 e.g., to restrict display to a very restricted set:
1208 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain add Ar \:from to cc subject .
1209 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1210 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1214 Note that historically the global
1216 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1220 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1221 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1222 aims at making user experience with the many
1225 When reading the system
1231 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1233 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a
1235 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1236 then messages which have been read will be moved to a
1238 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1241 file, automatically when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1242 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1243 .Sx "Message states" )
1244 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1245 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1250 After examining a message the user can also
1254 to the sender and all recipients or
1256 exclusively to the sender(s).
1257 Messages can also be
1259 ed (shorter alias is
1261 Note that when replying to or forwarding a message recipient addresses
1262 will be stripped from comments and names unless the internal variable
1265 Deletion causes \*(UA to forget about the message;
1266 This is not irreversible, though, one can
1268 the message by giving its number,
1269 or the \*(UA session can be ended by giving the
1274 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1276 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1277 automatic moving of read messages to
1279 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1283 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1286 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1287 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1289 Messages which are HTML-only get more and more common and of course many
1290 messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME attachments.
1291 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter to deal
1292 with HTML messages (see
1293 .Sx "The mime.types files" ) ,
1294 it normally cannot deal with any of these itself, but instead programs
1295 need to become registered to deal with specific MIME types or file
1297 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input
1298 in order to enable \*(UA to display the content on the terminal,
1299 or display the content themselves, for example in a graphical window.
1302 To install an external handler program for a specific MIME type set an
1304 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1305 variable; to instead define a handler for a specific file extension set
1308 variable \(en these handlers take precedence.
1309 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1310 RFC 1524; this mechanism, documented in the section
1311 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
1312 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1313 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1314 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1315 A last source for handlers may be the MIME type definition itself, if
1316 the \*(UA specific type-marker extension was used when defining the type
1319 (Many of the builtin MIME types do so by default.)
1323 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1324 can be set to improve dealing with faulty MIME part declarations as are
1325 often seen in real-life messages.
1326 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1327 fancy plain text representation than the builtin converter is capable to
1328 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1332 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1333 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1334 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1336 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1337 if [ "$features" !@ +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1338 #set pipe-text/html='elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1339 set pipe-text/html='lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1340 # Display HTML as plain text instead
1341 #set pipe-text/html=@
1343 mimetype '@ application/mathml+xml mathml'
1344 wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1345 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1346 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1347 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1351 Note: special care must be taken when using such commands as mail
1352 viruses may be distributed by this method: if messages of type
1353 .Ql application/x-sh
1354 or files with the extension
1356 were blindly filtered through the shell, for example, a message sender
1357 could easily execute arbitrary code on the system \*(UA is running on.
1358 For more on MIME, also in respect to sending of messages, see the
1360 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
1361 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
1366 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1369 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1372 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1374 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1379 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1380 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1381 currently defined mailing lists.
1386 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1387 in the header display.
1390 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1391 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1393 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1394 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1395 (are) matched sequentially.
1397 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1398 set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1399 wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1400 mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1405 .Va followup-to-honour
1407 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1408 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1414 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1415 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1417 .Dq mailing list specific
1422 is used to respond to a message with its
1423 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1427 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1428 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1429 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1430 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1431 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1432 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1434 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1435 address that is presented in the
1437 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1439 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1441 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1444 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1445 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1446 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1450 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
1451 .Ss "Resource files"
1453 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
1455 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
1458 System wide initialization file.
1459 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
1461 (and according argument) or
1463 command line options, or by setting the
1466 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
1470 File giving initial commands.
1471 A different file can be chosen by setting the
1475 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
1477 command line option.
1479 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
1480 Can be used to define an optional startup file to be read after all
1481 other resource files.
1482 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
1484 implementations, for example.
1485 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
1487 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
1491 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
1494 .Bl -bullet -compact
1496 A lines' leading whitespace is removed.
1498 Empty lines are ignored.
1500 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
1501 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
1503 by placing a reverse solidus character
1505 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
1506 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
1507 remains in the input.
1509 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
1511 then it is a comment-command \(en a real command! \(en and also ignored.
1512 This command is the only form of comment that is understood.
1516 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
1517 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
1518 More files with syntactically equal content can be
1520 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
1522 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1523 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
1524 es, it is really continued here.
1531 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1532 .Ss "Character sets"
1534 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1535 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1540 should give an overview); the \*(UA internal variable
1542 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly
1543 and will thus show up in the output of the commands
1549 However, a user supplied
1551 value is not overwritten by this detection mechanism: this
1553 must be used if the detection does not work properly,
1554 and it may be used to adjust the name of the locale character set.
1555 E.g., on BSD systems one may use a locale with the character set
1556 ISO8859-1, which is not a valid name for this character set; to be on
1557 the safe side, one may set
1559 to the correct name, which is ISO-8859-1.
1562 Note that changing the value does not mean much beside that,
1563 since several aspects of the real character set are implied by the
1564 locale environment of the system,
1565 and that stays unaffected by the content of an overwritten
1568 (This is mostly an issue when interactively using \*(UA, though.
1569 It is actually possible to send mail in a completely
1571 locale environment, an option that \*(UA's test-suite uses excessively.)
1574 If no character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into
1577 does not include the term
1581 will be the only supported character set,
1582 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1583 (over the wire an intermediate
1584 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
1586 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1587 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1588 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to the mentioned
1589 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./nail.h:CHARSET_*!)
1593 When reading messages, their text is converted into
1595 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1596 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1597 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
1598 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
1601 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
1602 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
1603 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
1605 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1606 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1609 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1610 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1611 appear to be binary data,
1612 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
1613 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
1614 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
1615 Permissible values for character sets can be declared using the
1619 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
1620 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
1624 When replying to a message and the variable
1625 .Va reply-in-same-charset
1626 is set then the character set of the message being replied to is tried
1627 first (after mapping via
1628 .Ic charsetalias ) .
1629 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
1630 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
1631 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
1632 please see there for more information.
1635 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
1636 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
1637 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
1638 content of the part or attachment,
1639 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
1643 In general, if the message
1644 .Dq Cannot convert from a to b
1645 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
1646 selected (terminal) character set,
1647 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
1648 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
1650 locale and/or the variable
1654 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
1655 locale on a UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
1656 spectrum of characters is available.
1657 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
1658 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
1659 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
1662 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
1663 .Dq portable character set
1664 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
1665 restricted subset named
1666 .Dq portable filename character set
1667 consisting of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
1675 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
1676 .Ss "Message states"
1678 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
1679 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
1681 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
1683 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
1685 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
1686 When operating on the system
1690 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
1691 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
1693 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1695 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
1696 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
1698 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
1701 mail-user-agents, the default global
1707 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
1709 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
1711 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
1712 Such messages are retained even in the
1714 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
1717 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
1718 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
1719 Such messages are retained even in the
1721 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
1724 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1743 will always try to automatically
1749 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
1751 command will do so if the internal variable
1756 command is used, messages that are in a
1758 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
1761 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in
1763 unless the internal variable
1768 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1774 can be used to access such messages.
1777 The message has been processed by a
1779 command and it will be retained in its current location.
1782 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1788 command is used, messages that are in a
1790 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
1793 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in
1795 when the internal variable
1801 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
1802 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
1803 addressing them when
1804 .Sx "Specifying messages"
1805 can be set on messages.
1806 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
1807 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
1809 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
1811 Mark messages as having been answered.
1813 Mark messages as being a draft.
1815 Mark messages which need special attention.
1819 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
1820 .Ss "Specifying messages"
1827 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
1828 of messages at once.
1831 deletes messages 1 and 2,
1834 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
1835 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
1839 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
1840 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
1843 The following special message names exist:
1846 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
1848 The current message, the so-called
1852 The message that was previously the current message.
1855 The parent message of the current message,
1856 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
1858 field or the last entry of the
1860 field of the current message.
1863 The next previous undeleted message,
1864 or the next previous deleted message for the
1867 In sorted/threaded mode,
1868 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1871 The next undeleted message,
1872 or the next deleted message for the
1875 In sorted/threaded mode,
1876 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1879 The first undeleted message,
1880 or the first deleted message for the
1883 In sorted/threaded mode,
1884 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1888 In sorted/threaded mode,
1889 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
1893 selects the message addressed with
1897 is any other message specification,
1898 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
1899 Otherwise it is identical to
1904 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
1909 All messages that were included in the
1910 .Sx "Message list arguments"
1911 of the previous command.
1914 An inclusive range of message numbers.
1915 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
1920 .Dq any substring matches
1923 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
1925 is set (and POSIX says
1926 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
1929 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
1930 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
1932 is completely ignored.
1933 For finer control and match boundaries use the
1937 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
1938 All messages that contain
1940 in the subject field (case ignored).
1947 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
1949 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
1952 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
1954 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
1956 support is available
1958 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
1960 (extended) regular expression characters is seen: in this case this
1961 should match strings correctly which are in the locale
1965 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
1966 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
1969 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
1971 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
1973 In order to search for a string that includes a
1975 (commercial at) character the
1977 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
1978 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
1992 respectively and case-insensitively.
1997 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2006 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
2007 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
2009 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2010 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2011 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
2012 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
2013 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2014 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
2015 (abbreviation) with a tilde
2018 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2021 All messages of state
2025 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2027 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2032 Old messages (any not in state
2054 messages (cf. the variable
2055 .Va markanswered ) .
2060 \*(OP Messages classified as spam (see
2061 .Sx "Handling spam" . )
2063 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
2069 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2070 This addressing mode is available with all types of folders;
2071 \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2072 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2074 in their entirety if they contain white space or parentheses;
2075 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2077 is recognized as an escape character.
2078 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2079 When the description indicates that the
2081 representation of an address field is used,
2082 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2085 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2086 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2091 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2092 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2096 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2097 .It Ar ( criterion )
2098 All messages that satisfy the given
2100 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2101 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2103 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2104 All messages that satisfy either
2109 To connect more than two criteria using
2111 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2113 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2117 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2120 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2121 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2125 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2126 All messages that do not satisfy
2128 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2129 All messages that contain
2131 in the envelope representation of the
2134 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2135 All messages that contain
2137 in the envelope representation of the
2140 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2141 All messages that contain
2143 in the envelope representation of the
2146 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2147 All messages that contain
2152 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2153 All messages that contain
2155 in the envelope representation of the
2158 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2159 All messages that contain
2164 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2165 All messages that contain
2168 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2169 All messages that contain
2171 in their header or body.
2172 .It Ar ( larger size )
2173 All messages that are larger than
2176 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2177 All messages that are smaller than
2181 .It Ar ( before date )
2182 All messages that were received before
2184 which must be in the form
2188 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2190 is the name of the month \(en one of
2191 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2194 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2198 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2199 .It Ar ( since date )
2200 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2201 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2202 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2203 .It Ar ( senton date )
2204 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2205 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2206 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2208 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2209 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2210 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2211 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2215 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
2216 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
2218 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
2219 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
2220 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
2223 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
2224 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
2225 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
2227 is used by the IMAP protocol but not by POP3);
2232 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
2238 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
2241 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
2242 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
2243 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
2244 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
2245 a well-known notation.
2248 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
2249 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
2254 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
2261 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
2267 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
2270 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
2271 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
2272 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2273 must not be URL percent encoded.
2276 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
2277 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
2278 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
2279 .Ql smtp://our.house
2280 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
2281 .Va smtp-use-starttls
2282 \*(UA first looks for whether
2283 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
2284 is defined, then whether
2285 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
2286 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
2289 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
2290 necessary credential information of an account:
2296 has been given in the URL the variables
2300 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
2301 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
2302 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
2309 specific entry which provides a
2311 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
2314 It is possible to load encrypted
2319 If there is still no
2321 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
2322 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
2323 known to be a valid user on the current host.
2326 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
2327 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
2328 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
2334 has been given in the URL, then if the
2336 has been found through the \*(OPal
2338 that may have already provided the password, too.
2339 Otherwise the variable chain
2340 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
2341 is looked up and used if existent.
2343 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
2344 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
2348 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
2349 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
2350 but with a password).
2352 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
2353 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
2354 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
2359 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
2363 header field(s), which means that the values of
2364 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
2366 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
2367 will not be looked up using the
2371 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
2372 message that is being worked on.
2373 In unusual cases multiple and different
2377 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
2378 unusual cases become possible.
2379 The usual case is as short as:
2382 .Dl set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
2383 .Dl \ \ \ \ smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
2388 contains complete example configurations.
2391 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2392 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2394 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2396 libraries, either the
2398 or, alternatively, the
2400 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2402 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2403 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2404 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2405 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys, and which will
2406 automatically enter the so-called
2408 alternative screen shall the terminal support it.
2409 The internal variable
2411 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2412 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2413 setting the internal variable
2414 .Va termcap-disable ;
2416 will be queried regardless, even if the \*(OPal support for the
2417 libraries has not been enabled at configuration time.
2420 \*(OP The builtin \*(UA Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2421 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2423 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2424 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2426 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2428 .Va line-editor-disable .
2429 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2430 entries in the internal variable
2432 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2433 The MLE can support a little bit of
2439 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2440 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2441 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2443 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2444 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2448 .Va history-gabby-persist
2453 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2454 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2455 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2456 be generated by holding the
2458 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2462 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2463 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2464 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2466 to establish its builtin key bindings
2467 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2468 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2469 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2470 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2471 notation is used in the following;
2472 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2473 generate a (unique) keycode:
2477 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql Ba"
2479 Go to the start of the line
2481 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2484 Move the cursor backward one character
2486 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2489 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2490 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2494 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2497 Go to the end of the line
2499 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2502 Move the cursor forward one character
2504 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2507 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2508 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2509 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2510 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2512 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2515 Backspace: backward delete one character
2517 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2521 Horizontal tabulator:
2522 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2523 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2525 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2527 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2531 commit the current line
2533 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2536 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2538 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2543 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2546 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2548 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2551 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2555 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2557 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2560 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2563 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2564 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2568 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) older history entries
2570 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-bwd ) .
2573 \*(OP Complete the current line from (the remaining) newer history entries
2575 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-srch-fwd ) .
2578 Paste the snarf buffer
2580 .Pf ( Cd mle-paste ) .
2588 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-line ) .
2591 Prompts for a Unicode character (its hexadecimal number) to be inserted
2593 .Pf ( Cd mle-prompt-char ) .
2594 Note this command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code
2595 in order to become recognized and executed during input of
2596 a key-sequence (only three single-letter control codes can be used for
2597 that shortcut purpose); this control code is special-treated and cannot
2598 be part of any other sequence, because any occurrence will perform the
2600 function immediately.
2603 Cut the characters from the one preceding the cursor to the preceding
2606 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-bwd ) .
2609 Move the cursor forward one word boundary
2611 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-fwd ) .
2614 Move the cursor backward one word boundary
2616 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-word-bwd ) .
2619 Escape: reset a possibly used multibyte character input state machine
2620 and \*(OPally a lingering, incomplete key binding
2622 .Pf ( Cd mle-cancel ) .
2623 This command needs to be assigned to a single-letter control code in
2624 order to become recognized and executed during input of a key-sequence
2625 (only three single-letter control codes can be used for that shortcut
2627 This control code may also be part of a multi-byte sequence, but if
2628 a sequence is active and the very control code is currently also an
2629 expected input, then it will first be consumed by the active sequence.
2632 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2636 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2640 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2644 Cut the characters from the one after the cursor to the succeeding word
2647 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-word-fwd ) .
2658 this will immediately reset a possibly active search etc.
2663 ring the audible bell.
2667 .\" .Ss "Coloured display" {{{
2668 .Ss "Coloured display"
2670 \*(OP \*(UA can be configured to support a coloured display and font
2671 attributes by emitting ANSI / ISO 6429 SGR (select graphic rendition)
2673 Usage of colours and font attributes solely depends upon the
2674 capability of the detected terminal type that is defined by the
2675 environment variable
2677 and which can be fine-tuned by the user via the internal variable
2681 On top of what \*(UA knows about the terminal the boolean variable
2683 defines whether the actually applicable colour and font attribute
2684 sequences should also be generated when output is going to be paged
2685 through the external program defined by the environment variable
2690 This is not enabled by default because different pager programs need
2691 different command line switches or other configuration in order to
2692 support those sequences.
2693 \*(UA however knows about some widely used pagers and in a clean
2694 environment it is often enough to simply set
2696 please refer to that variable for more on this topic.
2701 is set then any active usage of colour and font attribute sequences
2702 is suppressed, but without affecting possibly established
2707 To define and control colours and font attributes a single multiplexer
2708 command family exists:
2710 shows or defines colour mappings for the given colour type (e.g.,
2713 can be used to remove mappings of a given colour type.
2714 Since colours are only available in interactive mode, it may make
2715 sense to conditionalize the colour setup by encapsulating it with
2718 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2719 if terminal && $features =@ +colour
2720 colour iso view-msginfo ft=bold,fg=green
2721 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=red "from,subject"
2722 colour iso view-header fg=red
2724 uncolour iso view-header from,subject
2725 colour iso view-header ft=bold,fg=magenta,bg=cyan
2726 colour 256 view-header ft=bold,fg=208,bg=230 subject,from
2727 colour mono view-header ft=bold
2728 colour mono view-header ft=bold,ft=reverse subject,from
2732 .\" }}} (DESCRIPTION)
2735 .\" .Sh COMMANDS {{{
2738 Each command is typed on a line by itself,
2739 and may take arguments following the command word.
2740 An unquoted reverse solidus
2742 at the end of a command line
2744 the newline character: it is discarded and the next line of input is
2745 used as a follow-up line, with all leading whitespace removed;
2746 once the entire command line is completed, the processing that is
2747 documented in the following begins.
2750 Command names may be abbreviated, in which case the first command that
2751 matches the given prefix will be used.
2754 can be used to show the list of all commands, either alphabetically
2755 sorted or in prefix search order (these do not match, also because the
2756 POSIX standard prescribes a set of abbreviations).
2757 \*(OPally the command
2761 when given an argument, will show a documentation string for the
2762 command matching the expanded argument, as in
2764 which should be a shorthand of
2766 Both commands support a more
2768 listing mode which includes the argument type of the command,
2769 and other information which applies; a handy suggestion might be:
2771 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2773 # Be careful to choose sh(1)ell-style on _entire_ line!
2774 # Result status ends up in $!
2775 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
2777 ? ghost xv '\ecall __xv'
2781 .\" .Ss "Command modifiers" {{{
2782 .Ss "Command modifiers"
2784 Commands may be prefixed by one or multiple command modifiers.
2789 The modifier reverse solidus
2792 to be placed first, prevents
2794 expansions on the remains of the line, e.g.,
2796 will always evaluate the command
2798 even if a ghost of the same name exists.
2800 content may itself contain further command modifiers, including
2801 an initial reverse solidus to prevent further expansions.
2807 indicates that any error generated by the following command should be
2808 ignored by the state machine, via, e.g.,
2809 .Va batch-exit-on-error .
2812 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
2813 will be set to the real exit status of the command regardless.
2816 Some commands support the
2819 modifier: if used, they expect the name of a variable, which can itself
2820 be a variable, i.e., shell expansion is applied, as their first
2821 argument, and will place their computation result in it instead of the
2822 default location (it is usually written to standard output).
2823 The given name will be tested for being a valid
2825 variable name, and may therefore only consist of upper- and lowercase
2826 characters, digits, and the underscore; the hyphen-minus may be used as
2827 a non-portable extension.
2828 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
2829 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
2830 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
2831 It is a hard error that is tracked in
2833 if any of these tests fail.
2834 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
2835 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
2836 Some commands may report this as a hard failure in
2838 but most will use the soft exit status
2840 to indicate these failures.
2843 Last, but not least, the modifier
2846 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
2847 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2848 rules over the traditional
2849 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
2853 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
2854 .Ss "Message list arguments"
2856 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
2857 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
2858 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2860 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
2861 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used,
2862 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
2863 the search proceeds backwards;
2864 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
2865 shown and the command is aborted.
2868 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
2869 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
2871 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
2872 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
2873 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
2874 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2875 may be available even for those via
2878 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
2879 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
2880 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
2881 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
2884 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
2886 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
2891 any white space, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
2892 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
2893 part of the argument.
2894 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
2896 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
2897 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
2903 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
2904 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
2908 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
2909 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
2913 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
2914 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
2916 Commands which don't expect message-list arguments use
2918 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
2920 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
2921 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
2923 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
2926 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
2927 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
2928 Metacharacters are vertical bar
2935 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
2936 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
2938 and less-than and greater-than signs
2942 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
2943 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it also seems
2944 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
2947 Any unquoted number sign
2949 at the beginning of new token starts a comment that extends to the end
2950 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
2951 An unquoted dollar sign
2953 will cause variable expansion of the given name:
2954 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2957 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
2958 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
2961 Whereas the metacharacters
2962 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
2963 only complete an input token, vertical bar
2969 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
2970 For now supported is semicolon
2972 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
2973 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
2974 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
2975 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
2976 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
2979 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
2980 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
2983 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
2984 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
2985 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
2986 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
2989 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
2991 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
2992 with the escape character reverse solidus
2996 Arguments which are enclosed in
2997 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
2998 retain their literal value.
2999 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3002 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3003 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3004 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3006 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3008 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3010 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3012 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3016 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3018 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3019 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3022 Arguments enclosed in
3023 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3024 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3025 expanded as follows:
3027 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
3033 an escape character.
3035 an escape character.
3047 emits a reverse solidus character.
3051 double quote (escaping is optional).
3053 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3055 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3057 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3059 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3061 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
3062 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3064 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3066 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3067 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3072 This escape is only supported in locales which support Unicode (see
3073 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3074 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3075 point is ASCII compatible or can be represented in the current locale.
3076 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3080 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
3082 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3083 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3084 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3085 mapping them to a different part of the ASCII character set, which is
3086 possible by adding the number 64 for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL) is
3087 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3088 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3090 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3091 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3093 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3094 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3096 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3098 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO 10646, ISO C) aliases,
3099 as shown above (e.g.,
3103 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3104 The control code NUL
3106 a non-standard extension) ends argument processing without producing
3109 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3110 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3112 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3119 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3120 echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3121 echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3122 echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3126 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3127 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3129 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3130 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3133 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3135 If the given name is a registered
3137 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3140 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3142 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3144 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3146 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3147 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3148 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3150 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3152 if that is set, or a builtin compile-time default otherwise.
3154 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3156 (and never the value of
3158 regardless of its actual setting).
3160 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking users
3161 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3162 secondary mailbox, the
3169 directory (if that variable is set).
3171 Expands to the same value as
3173 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3175 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3179 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3180 session will be moved to the
3182 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3186 Meta expansions are applied to the resulting filename, as applicable to
3187 the resulting file access protocol (also see
3188 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3189 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3190 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3192 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3194 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3196 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3197 directory of the given user is used instead.
3203 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3204 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3207 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, and the usual
3208 escape mechanism has to be applied to prevent interpretation.
3210 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3212 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3213 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3215 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3219 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3222 The following commands are available:
3224 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3229 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3230 previously executed command if the internal variable
3236 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3238 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3241 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3242 on a line are not possible.
3246 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3252 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3253 a numeric argument n.
3257 Show the current message number (the
3262 Show a brief summary of commands.
3263 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3264 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3265 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3266 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3271 and see how the output changes.
3272 This mode also supports a more
3274 output, which will provide the informations documented for
3285 \*(NQ Interprets the remainder of the word as a macro name and passes
3290 is a shorter synonym for
3291 .Ql call Ar mymacro .
3295 (ac) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3296 Accounts are special incarnations of
3298 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3299 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3300 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3302 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3307 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted via
3310 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3311 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3313 of that account will be activated (as via
3315 a possibly installed
3317 will be run, and the internal variable
3320 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3322 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3324 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3325 set from='myname@myisp.example (My Name)'
3326 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3332 \*(NQ Interprets the given arguments as an email address specification,
3333 formats it as induced by email standards, and then shows the result.
3337 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3338 The return status is tracked via
3340 \*(ID This will improve further.
3344 (a) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists that
3345 map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
3346 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed; to
3347 delete aliases, use the command
3349 With no arguments the command shows all currently defined aliases.
3350 With one argument, shows the expansion of the given alias.
3351 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
3352 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
3353 Alias names are restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
3354 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon, commercial at and
3355 period, the last character can also be the dollar sign:
3356 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@.-]+$? .
3360 (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active user,
3361 members of which will be removed from recipient lists when replying to
3364 variable is not set).
3365 Without arguments the current set of alternates is displayed, otherwise
3366 the set of alternate names is replaced by the given arguments, and the
3369 is updated accordingly.
3373 Takes a message list and marks each message as having been answered.
3374 Messages will be marked answered when being
3376 to automatically if the
3380 .Sx "Message states" .
3385 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
3386 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3387 with freely configurable key bindings.
3388 With one argument all bindings for the given context are shown,
3389 specifying an asterisk
3391 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
3392 produced if either of
3397 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
3398 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
3399 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
3401 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3402 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3403 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
3405 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3406 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3407 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3410 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3411 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3412 This is not true for the shared binding
3414 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3415 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3416 The available contexts are the shared
3420 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3422 which applies to compose mode only.
3426 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3427 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
3428 \*(OPally a list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
3430 also refer to the name of a terminal capability;
3431 several dozen names will be compiled into \*(UA and may be specified
3434 or, if existing, by their
3436 name, regardless of the actually used terminal control library.
3437 It is however possible to use any capability, as long as the name is
3438 resolvable by the control library or defined in the internal variable
3440 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
3441 required to update or remove a binding.
3444 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3445 bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
3446 bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
3447 bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
3448 bind default a,b,c rm -rf / @ # Another editable binding
3449 bind default :kf1 File %
3450 bind compose :kf1 ~e
3454 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
3455 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
3456 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
3457 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
3458 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
3459 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
3460 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
3461 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3462 and using terminal capabilities does so if no terminal control support
3463 is (currently) available.
3466 The following terminal capability names are builtin and can be used in
3468 or (if available) the two-letter
3470 notation regardless of the actually used library.
3471 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
3474 can be used to show all the capabilities of
3476 or the given terminal type;
3479 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
3482 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
3483 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
3485 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
3487 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
3488 \(em shifted variant.
3489 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
3490 Clear to end of line.
3491 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
3493 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
3495 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
3496 \(em shifted variant.
3497 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
3499 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
3500 \(em shifted variant.
3501 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
3503 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
3505 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
3507 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
3508 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
3509 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
3510 \(em shifted variant.
3511 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
3512 Right cursor (ditto).
3513 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
3514 \(em shifted variant.
3515 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
3516 Down cursor (ditto).
3518 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3519 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
3522 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3523 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
3525 Add one for each function key up to
3530 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
3532 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
3534 Add one for each function key up to
3542 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
3544 For example, the delete key,
3546 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
3548 then a number is appended for the states
3560 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
3562 The same for the left cursor key,
3564 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
3567 Key bindings can be removed with the command
3569 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
3571 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
3572 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
3573 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
3576 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
3581 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
3583 Parameters given to macros are implicitly local to the macro's scope, and
3584 may be accessed via the special parameter syntax that is known from the
3591 Positional parameters may be removed by
3593 ing them off the stack.
3594 Macro execution can be terminated at any time by calling
3596 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
3600 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
3601 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3603 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
3606 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
3613 if the given macro has been created via
3615 but doesn't fail nor warn if the macro doesn't exist.
3619 (ch) Change the working directory to
3621 or the given argument.
3627 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
3628 Takes a message list and a file name and saves the certificates
3629 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
3630 human-readable and PEM format.
3631 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
3632 respective message senders by setting
3633 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
3638 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
3639 \*(NQ Manage (character set conversion) character set alias mappings,
3640 as documented in the section
3641 .Sx "Character sets" .
3642 Character set aliases are expanded recursively, but no expansion is
3643 performed on values of the user-settable variables, e.g.,
3645 These are effectively no-operations if character set conversion
3646 is not available (i.e., no
3650 Without arguments the list of all currently defined aliases is shown.
3651 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
3652 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
3653 existing aliases, as necessary.
3655 The latter deletes all aliases given as arguments, the special argument
3657 will remove all aliases.
3661 (ch) Change the working directory to
3663 or the given argument.
3669 Only applicable to threaded mode.
3670 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
3671 in header summaries, unless they are in state
3677 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
3678 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3679 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
3680 which must be one of
3682 for 256-colour terminals,
3687 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
3691 for monochrome terminals.
3692 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
3696 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
3697 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
3701 will show the mappings of all types).
3702 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
3703 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
3704 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
3705 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
3706 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
3707 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
3709 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
3710 .Sx "Coloured display"
3711 for some examples), the following of which exist:
3714 Mappings prefixed with
3716 are used for the \*(OPal builtin Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
3717 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3718 and do not support preconditions.
3720 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3722 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
3723 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
3730 Mappings prefixed with
3732 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
3734 (the current message) and
3736 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
3737 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
3739 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3741 This mapping is used for the
3743 that can be created with the
3747 formats of the variable
3750 For the complete header summary line except the
3752 and the thread structure.
3754 For the thread structure which can be created with the
3756 format of the variable
3761 Mappings prefixed with
3763 are used when displaying messages.
3765 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3767 This mapping is used for so-called
3769 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
3772 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
3773 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
3774 available then if any of the
3776 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
3777 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
3779 For the introductional message info line.
3780 .It Ar view-partinfo
3781 For MIME part info lines.
3785 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
3786 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
3796 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
3797 attributes for a single mapping.
3800 foreground colour attribute:
3810 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
3811 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
3813 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
3815 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
3817 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
3819 216 colors in tuples of 6.
3821 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
3823 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3825 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3826 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3828 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3829 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3831 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3832 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3836 background colour attribute (see
3838 for possible values).
3842 Mappings may be removed with the command
3844 For a generic overview see the section
3845 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3850 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
3851 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
3852 otherwise identical to
3857 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
3858 otherwise identical to
3863 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
3868 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3869 The return status is tracked via
3874 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3876 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3880 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3882 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3886 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
3887 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined.
3888 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
3889 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3898 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
3902 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
3904 It is possible to localize adjustments, like creation, deletion and
3906 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3909 command; the scope which is localized depends on how (i.e.,
3911 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
3913 switch) the macro is invoked.
3914 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
3918 ed macro, given positional parameters can be
3921 Macros can be deleted via
3926 (d) Marks the given message list as
3928 Deleted messages will neither be saved in
3930 nor will they be available for most other commands.
3933 variable is set, automatically
3946 Superseded by the multiplexer
3952 Delete the given messages and automatically
3956 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
3963 up or down by one message when given
3967 argument, respectively.
3971 Takes a message list and marks each given message as a draft.
3973 .Sx "Message states" .
3977 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
3978 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
3981 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
3983 .Sx "Filename transformations"
3984 are applied to the expanded arguments.
3990 except that is echoes to standard error.
3998 but does not write a trailing newline.
4004 but does not write a trailing newline.
4008 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
4010 at each message from the given list in turn.
4011 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4018 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4019 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4021 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4022 if it evaluates true.
4027 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4028 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4032 commands was true, the
4038 (en) Marks the end of an
4039 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4040 conditional execution block.
4045 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4046 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4047 and which are managed in the program
4049 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4050 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4051 internal variables via
4055 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4056 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4057 process environment where they normally are not, a
4059 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4062 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB from TZ
4065 Afterwards changing such variables with
4067 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4068 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4069 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4070 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4072 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4073 the knowledge they ever have been
4076 Note this implies that
4078 may cause loss of links.
4083 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4084 Additionally the subcommands
4088 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4092 but (additionally) link the variable(s) with the program environment and
4093 thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4094 respectively, the program environment.
4099 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4100 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4101 Optionally an error message ring queue is available which stores
4102 duplicates of any error message and notifies the user in interactive
4103 sessions whenever a new error has occurred.
4104 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4105 replaces the eldest.
4108 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4110 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4112 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4116 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4117 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4118 This command passes through the status of the evaluated command.
4121 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4123 # Like this, sh(1)ell-stylish from begin to end: works!
4124 # Result status ends up in $!, then
4125 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
4127 ghost xv '\ecall xverbose'
4140 call yyy '~xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
4148 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
4149 any saving of messages in
4151 as well as a possibly tracked line editor history file.
4157 but open the mailbox read-only.
4162 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
4163 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
4164 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
4165 the user has made and open a new mailbox.
4166 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4167 will be applied to the
4172 If the name ends with
4177 it is treated as being compressed with
4182 respectively, and transparently handled through an intermediate
4183 (un)compression step (using a temporary file) with the according
4184 facility, sufficient support provided.
4185 Likewise, if the named file does not exist, but a file with one of the
4186 mentioned compression extensions does, then the name is automatically
4187 expanded and the compressed file is used.
4190 Otherwise, if the name ends with an extension for which
4191 .Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION
4193 .Va file-hook-save-EXTENSION
4194 variables are set, then the given hooks will be used to load and save
4196 and \*(UA will work with an intermediate temporary file.
4198 MBOX files (flat file-based mailboxes) are generally locked during file
4199 operations in order to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent
4201 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
4206 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
4207 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files, the
4208 traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
4212 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
4213 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
4214 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
4215 the dotlock file in the same directory
4216 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
4219 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
4220 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
4221 complain (even more with
4223 if any is seen: in this case
4225 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
4230 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
4235 then it is treated as a folder in
4237 format; \*(ID the variable
4239 can be used to control the format of yet non-existent folders.
4243 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
4244 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
4247 is taken as an Internet mailbox specification.
4248 The \*(OPally supported protocols are
4252 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport).
4255 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
4257 Also see the section
4258 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
4263 contains special characters, in particular
4267 they must be escaped in URL notation \(en the command
4269 can be used to show the necessary conversion.
4274 Takes a message list and marks the messages as flagged for
4275 urgent/special attention.
4277 .Sx "Message states" .
4286 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
4287 With an existing folder as an argument,
4288 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
4294 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4295 recipient's address (instead of in
4302 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4303 recipient's address (instead of in
4310 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
4315 .It Ic followupsender
4318 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
4334 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
4335 their message headers, exactly as via
4337 An alias of this command is
4340 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
4346 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
4347 recipient's address (instead of in
4352 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
4353 and forwards the message to him.
4354 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
4355 with the value of the
4357 variable preceding it.
4358 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
4360 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
4362 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
4363 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
4364 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
4365 unless the internal variable
4371 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4376 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4381 Define or list command aliases, so-called ghosts.
4382 A ghost can be used everywhere a normal command can be used, but always
4383 takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command alias are
4384 joined onto the alias content, and the resulting string forms the
4385 command line that is, in effect, executed.
4386 Command ghosts can be removed with
4388 Without arguments a list of all currently known aliases is shown.
4389 With one argument the expansion of the given alias is shown.
4391 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
4392 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
4393 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
4394 A ghost may itself expand to another ghost, but to avoid expansion loops
4395 further expansion will be prevented if a ghost refers to itself or if an
4396 expansion depth limit is reached.
4397 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
4400 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
4401 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4403 \*(uA: `ghost': no such alias: xx
4406 ghost xx "echo hello,"
4416 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to establish white- and blacklisting
4417 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
4418 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
4419 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
4420 command applies, one of (case-insensitively)
4422 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
4425 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
4431 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
4432 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
4434 for stripping down messages when
4436 ing message (has no effect if
4437 .Va forward-as-attachment
4440 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
4444 The current settings of the given context are displayed if only the
4445 first argument is given.
4446 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
4447 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
4451 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
4452 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
4454 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
4458 With four or more arguments the third denotes the action to be applied,
4463 for addition of fields, and
4467 for removal of fields from the given type of the given context.
4468 The fourth, and any following arguments are expected to specify the
4469 fields of desire, or \*(OPally, regular expression matches ought to
4471 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
4473 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields, or
4474 remove all fields in one operation, respectively.
4479 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
4482 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
4484 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
4485 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
4500 the list of history entries;
4503 argument selects and evaluates the respective history entry,
4504 which will become the new history top; a negative number is used as an
4505 offset to the current command, e.g.,
4507 will select the last command, the history top.
4508 The default mode if no arguments are given is
4515 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
4520 Does not override the
4523 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
4525 command issued after
4527 will display the following message, not the current one.
4532 (i) Part of the nestable
4533 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4534 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
4535 the encapsulated block is executed.
4536 POSIX only supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
4541 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions; note that
4542 falsely specified conditions cause the execution of the entire
4543 conditional construct until the (matching) closing
4545 command to be suppressed.
4546 The syntax of the nestable
4548 conditional execution construct requires that each condition and syntax
4549 element is surrounded by whitespace.
4551 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4560 The (case-insensitive) condition
4562 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
4563 in interactive sessions.
4564 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
4565 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4566 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
4569 .Dq always execute .
4570 It is possible to check
4571 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4574 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
4575 value or another variable by using the
4577 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
4578 conditional trigger character;
4579 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
4581 The variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
4584 Integer operators treat the left and right hand side as integral numbers
4585 and compare them arithmetically.
4586 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
4587 operand is treated as if it were 0.
4588 Available operators are
4592 (less than or equal to),
4598 (greater than or equal to), and
4603 String operators compare the left and right hand side 8-bit byte-wise,
4604 ignoring case according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding
4605 (therefore, dependent on the active locale, possibly producing false
4606 results for strings in the locale encoding).
4607 An unset variable is treated as the empty string.
4608 Available operators are
4612 (less than or equal to),
4618 (greater than or equal to),
4622 (is substring of) and
4624 (is not substring of).
4627 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
4633 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
4634 matched case-insensitively and according to the active
4636 locale, meaning that strings in the locale encoding should be matched
4640 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
4642 and the OR operator is
4644 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
4645 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
4647 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
4648 them in pairs of brackets
4649 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
4650 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
4654 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
4655 via unary operators: the unary operator
4657 will reverse the result.
4659 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4663 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || [ "$ttycharset" == UTF8 ]
4664 echo *ttycharset* is set to UTF-8, case-insensitively
4667 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
4668 echo These two variables are equal
4670 # This is a string test, -ge was added for v14.9.0
4671 if [ "$version-major" >= 15 ]
4672 echo Running a new version..
4673 if [ "$features" =@ +regex ]
4674 if [ "$TERM" =~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
4675 echo ..in an X terminal
4678 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
4679 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
4682 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
4683 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
4685 if ! ! true && ! [ ! "$debug" && ! "$verbose" ]
4686 echo Unary operator support
4696 Superseded by the multiplexer
4701 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
4702 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
4703 in which command prefixes are searched.
4704 In conjunction with a set variable
4706 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
4707 type will be indicated, the \*(OPal documentation string will be shown,
4708 and the set of command flags will show up:
4710 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql BaNg"
4711 .It Ql "vput modifier"
4712 command supports the command modifier
4714 .It Ql "status in *!*"
4715 the soft exit status is tracked in
4718 commands needs an active mailbox, a
4720 .It Ql "ok: batch or interactive"
4721 command may only be used in interactive or
4724 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
4725 command can be used in send mode.
4726 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
4727 command is not available when in compose-mode.
4728 .It Ql "not ok: during startup"
4729 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
4730 .Sx "Resource files" .
4731 .It Ql "ok: in subprocess"
4732 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
4733 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
4734 .Va on-compose-done .
4739 This command can be used to localize changes to variables, meaning that
4740 their state will be reverted to the former one once the covered scope
4742 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
4746 and is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
4747 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ) ;
4750 of an account is left once it is switched off again.
4751 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4752 define temporary_settings {
4753 set possibly_global_option1
4758 set possibly_global_option2
4767 enables change localization and calls
4769 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
4771 will still be reverted by
4773 \*(ID Once the outermost level, the one which enabled localization
4774 first, is left, but no earlier, all adjustments will be unrolled.
4775 \*(ID Likewise worth knowing, if in this example
4777 changes to a different
4779 which sets some variables that are yet covered by localizations, their
4780 scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
4782 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
4783 were defined in a local, private context.
4787 Reply to messages that come in via known
4790 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
4791 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
4792 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
4795 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
4796 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
4798 For example it will also implicitly generate a
4799 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
4800 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
4807 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4808 recipient's address (instead of in
4813 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
4814 or asks on standard input if none were given;
4815 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
4819 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to
4821 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
4824 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
4826 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
4830 Without any arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed.
4831 Otherwise each argument defines a complete MIME type specification of
4832 a type that shall be added (prepended) to the cache.
4833 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
4834 .Va mimetypes-load-control
4835 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
4836 Refer to the section on
4837 .Sx "The mime.types files"
4838 for more on MIME type specifications and this topic in general.
4839 MIME type unregistration and cache resets can be triggered with
4844 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists
4845 (and their attributes, if any) is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4846 produced if either of
4851 Otherwise all given arguments (which need not be quoted except for
4852 whitespace) will be added and henceforth be recognized as mailing lists.
4853 Mailing lists may be removed via the command
4856 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
4857 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
4863 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists which
4864 have a subscription attribute is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4865 produced if either of
4870 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
4871 newly creating them as necessary (as via
4873 Subscription attributes may be removed via the command
4882 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
4883 sender address of the first message (instead of in
4890 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
4897 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
4899 selection, and all MIME parts.
4907 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
4908 standard output is a terminal.
4914 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
4916 has been given the content of the
4918 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
4921 then the cache will only be initialized and
4923 will remove its contents.
4924 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
4925 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
4926 to unlock further attempts.
4931 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
4933 .Sx "The .netrc file"
4934 documents the file format in detail.
4938 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
4940 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
4944 the headers of each new message are also shown.
4945 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
4953 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
4954 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
4968 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
4970 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
4976 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
4978 selection, and all MIME parts.
4986 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
4987 standard output is a terminal.
4995 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
4997 selection, and all parts of MIME
4998 .Ql multipart/alternative
5003 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
5004 and pipes the messages through the command.
5005 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
5012 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
5033 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
5036 preserving all messages marked with
5040 or never referenced in the system
5042 and removing all other messages from the
5044 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5045 If new mail has arrived during the session,
5047 .Dq You have new mail
5049 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
5051 then the edit file is rewritten.
5052 A return to the shell is effected,
5053 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
5054 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
5058 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, and assign the splitted and
5059 trimmed line data to the given variables.
5060 The variable names are check by the same rules as documented for
5062 If there are more fields than variables, assign successive fields to the
5063 last given variable.
5064 If there are less fields than variables, assign the empty string to the
5066 The return status is tracked via
5068 even though variable names are checked errors may still happen if it is
5069 tried to set, e.g., strings to variables which expect number settings;
5070 it thus only happens if names are used which have special meaning to \*(UA.
5071 \*(ID This command will likely be extended towards more
5073 compatibility: for now splitting always occurs at whitespace, reverse
5074 solidus newline escaping is always supported, and the \*(OPal line
5075 editing features are always available when on an interactive terminal.
5076 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5079 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
5095 Removes the named files or directories.
5096 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
5097 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
5098 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
5102 Takes the name of an existing folder
5103 and the name for the new folder
5104 and renames the first to the second one.
5105 Both folders must be of the same type.
5109 (R) Reply to originator.
5110 Does not reply to other recipients of the original message.
5112 will exchange this command with
5114 Unless the internal variable
5116 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5120 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
5123 .Va followup-to-honour ,
5126 .Va recipients-in-cc
5127 influence response behaviour.
5130 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
5131 Unless the internal variable
5133 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5146 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
5153 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
5160 but does not add any header lines.
5161 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
5162 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
5166 Takes a list of messages and a user name
5167 and sends each message to the named user.
5169 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
5187 .It Ic respondsender
5193 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
5198 Only available inside the scope of a
5202 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
5203 execution control to the caller.
5204 If no arguments are specified, the return value, which will be stored in
5206 as well as the macro command exit status, which is made available in
5209 If only the return value is given the command exit status will be 0.
5210 Both optional parameters must be specified as unsigned (positive)
5213 \*(ID Notes: any non-0 command exit status is treated as a hard error
5214 by the state machinery, and will be propagated up and cause, e.g.,
5215 a file inclusion via
5217 to fail; this two argument form likely is a temporary hack that will
5224 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
5225 sender of the first message instead of (in
5227 and) taking a filename argument.
5231 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
5232 to the end of the file.
5233 If no filename is given, the
5236 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
5237 is echoed on the user's terminal.
5240 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
5241 the messages are marked for deletion.
5242 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5247 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5252 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5257 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5262 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
5263 all matching messages, as via
5265 This command is an alias of
5268 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
5272 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
5276 (se) Without arguments this command shows all internal variables which
5277 are currently known to \*(UA (they have been set).
5278 A more verbose listing will be produced if either of
5282 are set, in which case variables may be preceded with a comment line
5283 that gives some context of what \*(UA knows about the given variable.
5285 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
5286 Arguments are of the form
5288 (no space before or after
5292 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
5293 Quotation marks may be placed around any part of the assignment
5294 statement to quote blanks or tabs, e.g.,
5296 .Dl set indentprefix='->'
5298 If an argument begins with
5302 the effect is the same as invoking the
5304 command with the remaining part of the variable
5305 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
5309 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
5310 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
5311 environment requires corresponding system support).
5312 Please use the command
5314 for further environmental control.
5319 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5325 (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell.
5329 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
5331 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
5332 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
5334 Shortcuts can be removed with the command
5339 Only available inside the scope of a
5341 ed macro, this will shift the positional parameters (starting at
5343 by the given number (which must be an unsigned, positive, decimal),
5344 or 1 if no argument has been given.
5345 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
5346 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
5352 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
5353 message text is shown.
5357 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
5362 Shows the current sorting criterion when used without an argument.
5363 Otherwise creates a sorted representation of the current folder,
5366 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
5368 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
5372 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
5373 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
5375 variable, as in, e.g.,
5376 .Ql set autosort=thread .
5377 Possible sorting criterions are:
5379 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
5381 Sort the messages by their
5383 field, that is by the time they were sent.
5385 Sort messages by the value of their
5387 field, that is by the address of the sender.
5390 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
5392 Sort the messages by their size.
5394 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
5397 Sort the messages by their message status.
5399 Sort the messages by their subject.
5401 Create a threaded display.
5403 Sort messages by the value of their
5405 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
5408 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
5413 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
5414 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5416 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
5418 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
5419 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
5420 Interpretation of commands read is stopped when an error is encountered.
5423 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
5424 .Va folder-hook Ns s
5427 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
5432 \*(NQ The difference to
5434 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
5435 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
5436 argument cannot be opened successfully.
5440 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
5446 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
5448 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
5449 Unless otherwise noted the
5451 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
5459 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
5463 This also clears the
5465 flag of the messages in question.
5469 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
5470 .Va spam-interface ,
5471 without modifying the messages, but setting their
5473 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
5474 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
5475 Refer to the manual section
5477 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
5481 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
5487 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
5493 flag of the messages in question.
5502 Create a threaded representation of the current folder,
5503 i.\|e. indent messages that are replies to other messages in the header
5504 display and change the
5506 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in the
5508 Message numbers are the same as in unthreaded mode.
5512 a header summary in threaded order is also displayed.
5521 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
5525 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
5527 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
5528 Unless a special selection has been established for the
5532 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
5543 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
5545 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
5550 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in
5552 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
5555 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
5561 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5563 selection, and all parts of MIME
5564 .Ql multipart/alternative
5569 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users'
5573 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
5577 are shown, the other are hidden except for their headers.
5578 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
5583 Delete all given accounts.
5584 An error message is shown if a given account is not defined.
5587 will discard all existing accounts.
5591 (una) Takes a list of names defined by alias commands
5592 and discards the remembered groups of users.
5595 will discard all existing aliases.
5599 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been answered.
5605 ing, specified by its context and input sequence, both of which may be
5606 specified as a wildcard (asterisk,
5610 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
5614 Only applicable to threaded mode.
5615 Takes a message list and makes the message and all replies to it visible
5616 in header summaries again.
5617 When a message becomes the current message,
5618 it is automatically made visible.
5619 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
5620 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
5626 mapping for the given colour type (see
5628 for a list of types) and mapping; if the optional precondition argument
5629 is used then only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
5632 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed).
5634 .Sx "Coloured display"
5635 for the general picture.
5639 Undefine all given macros.
5640 An error message is shown if a given macro is not defined.
5643 will discard all existing macros.
5647 (u) Takes a message list and marks each message as not being deleted.
5650 variable is set, the last message restored will be
5652 d automatically; if no message list had been specified then the usual
5653 search for a visible message is performed, as documented for
5655 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
5663 Takes a message list and
5669 Takes a message list and marks each message as not being
5674 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5679 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5684 Remove all the given command
5688 will remove all ghosts.
5692 Superseded by the multiplexer
5697 Delete all given MIME types, e.g.,
5698 .Ql unmimetype text/plain
5699 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5703 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5705 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5706 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5710 Forget about all the given mailing lists.
5713 will remove all lists.
5718 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
5719 Remove the subscription attribute from all given mailing lists.
5722 will clear the attribute from all lists which have it set.
5733 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
5737 Superseded by the multiplexer
5742 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5747 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5752 \*(NQ (uns) Takes a list of internal variable names and discards their
5753 remembered values; the reverse of
5762 s given as arguments, the special argument
5764 will remove all shortcuts.
5768 Disable sorted or threaded mode
5774 return to normal message order and,
5778 displays a header summary.
5788 \*(NQ Perform URL percent codec operations, rather according to RFC 3986.
5792 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5793 The return status is tracked via
5795 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
5796 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current locale, unless
5797 the input solely consists of characters in the portable character set, see
5798 .Sx "Character sets" .
5799 \*(ID This command does not about URLs beside that.
5801 The first argument specifies the operation:
5805 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
5809 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
5810 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
5812 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
5816 as an initial character.
5817 The remaining arguments form the URL data which is to be converted.
5821 \*(NQ Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
5823 Boolean variables cannot be edited, and variables can also not be
5829 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
5833 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
5837 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
5838 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
5839 verification will fail for it.
5840 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
5842 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
5843 within the certificate,
5844 and if the message content has been altered.
5857 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
5858 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
5859 numeric calculations as well as string operations.
5860 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
5861 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
5862 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
5866 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5867 The return status is tracked via
5869 the result that is shown in case of (soft) errors is
5871 In general only invalid use cases cause hard errors which are reflected in
5873 and affect the state machine.
5876 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
5877 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
5879 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
5880 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
5882 which creates the bitwise complement.
5883 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
5885 subtraction (hyphen-minus
5887 multiplication (asterisk
5891 and modulo (percent sign
5893 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
5896 bitwise and (ampersand
5899 bitwise xor (circumflex
5901 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
5904 as well as for the unsigned right shift
5908 All numeric operators can be suffixed with a commercial at
5912 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
5913 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are still reflected in
5914 the return status, but the result will linger at the minimum or maximum
5915 possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
5916 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
5917 If in saturated mode the overflow occurs during parsing the numbers,
5918 then the actual operation will not be performed but the given maximum
5919 value is used as the result immediately.
5922 String operations that take one argument are
5924 which queries the length of the given argument,
5926 which calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given string, and
5928 which performs the usual
5929 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
5930 on its argument, as well as
5932 which generates a random string of the given length, or of
5934 bytes (a constant from
5936 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
5937 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a file name.
5940 String operations with two or more arguments are
5942 which searches in the first for the second argument, and shows the
5943 resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found,
5945 which is identical to
5947 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
5950 will show a substring of its first argument:
5951 the second argument is the 0-based starting offset, the optional third
5952 argument can be used to specify the length of the desired substring,
5953 by default the entire string is used;
5954 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments, but the (soft)
5955 return status will still reflect them (set
5962 will try to match the first argument with the regular expression given
5963 in the second argument, as does
5965 but which is case-insensitive.
5966 These operators match according to the active
5968 locale and thus should match correctly strings in the locale encoding.
5969 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
5970 the match offset a replacement operation is performed:
5971 the third argument is treated as if specified via dollar-single-quote
5973 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
5974 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
5976 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression.
5978 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5979 ? vexpr -@ +1 -9223372036854775808
5980 ? vput vexpr res ir bananarama (.*)nana(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
5987 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
5988 Modified contents are discarded unless the
5994 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
5995 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
5997 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
5998 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
5999 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
6000 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
6001 depends on the execution mode.
6002 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
6004 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
6005 the processed parts.
6006 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
6007 value, the same result as writing it to
6009 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
6011 character for the filename is supported.
6012 Other user input undergoes the usual
6013 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
6014 and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
6017 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
6018 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
6019 URL percent encoded (as via
6021 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
6022 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
6023 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
6024 a dot are appended after a number sign
6026 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
6036 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
6038 fuls as described under the
6041 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
6042 likewise if the argument is
6046 scrolls to the last,
6048 scrolls to the first, and
6053 A number argument prefixed by
6057 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
6058 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
6064 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
6074 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
6075 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6077 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
6078 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
6079 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines.
6080 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
6082 it defaults to the tilde
6086 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
6089 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
6091 (If the escape character has been changed,
6092 that character must be doubled
6093 in order to send it at the beginning of a line.)
6096 .It Ic ~! Ar command
6097 Execute the indicated shell
6099 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
6100 executed command if the internal variable
6102 is set, then return to the message.
6106 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
6109 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
6110 Execute the given \*(UA command.
6111 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
6115 Write a summary of command escapes.
6118 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
6123 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
6125 is executed using the shell.
6126 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
6129 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
6130 Append or edit the list of attachments.
6133 arguments is expected (see
6134 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
6135 any token-separating commas are ignored), to be
6136 interpreted as documented for the command line option
6138 with the message number exception as below.
6141 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
6142 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
6143 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
6144 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
6147 For each mode, if a given file name solely consists of the number sign
6149 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
6150 the given message is attached as a MIME
6152 part (note the number sign is the comment character and must be quoted).
6156 Inserts the string contained in the
6159 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0Sign ) .
6164 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6172 Inserts the string contained in the
6175 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0sign ) .
6180 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6187 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
6188 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
6191 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
6192 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
6196 Read the file specified by the
6198 variable into the message.
6202 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
6203 After the editing session is finished,
6204 the user may continue appending text to the message.
6207 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
6208 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
6209 message headers and MIME parts.
6210 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
6213 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
6214 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
6215 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
6216 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
6218 white- and blacklist selection of
6220 For MIME multipart messages,
6221 only the first displayable part is included.
6225 Edit the message header fields
6230 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
6231 The default values for these fields originate from the
6239 Edit the message header fields
6245 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
6248 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
6249 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message,
6250 adding a newline character at the end.
6251 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
6256 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6263 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
6264 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
6267 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
6270 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
6271 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
6274 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
6275 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
6277 white- and blacklist selection of
6279 For MIME multipart messages,
6280 only the first displayable part is included.
6284 Display the message collected so far,
6285 prefaced by the message header fields
6286 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
6290 Abort the message being sent,
6291 copying it to the file specified by the
6298 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
6301 but indent each line that has been read by
6305 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
6306 Read the named file into the message.
6308 can also be a hyphen-minus
6310 in which case standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
6311 Only in this latter mode
6313 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
6315 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
6317 is a required argument in non-interactive mode;
6318 note that variables expansion is performed on the delimiter.
6322 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
6323 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
6324 normalized to space (SP) characters.
6327 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
6328 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
6331 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
6332 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
6336 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
6337 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
6341 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
6343 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
6344 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
6345 After the editor is quit,
6346 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
6349 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
6350 Write the message onto the named file.
6352 the message is appended to it.
6358 except that the message is not saved at all.
6361 .It Ic ~| Ar command
6362 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
6363 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
6364 retain the original text of the message.
6367 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
6371 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
6372 Low-level command ment for scripted message access, i.e., for
6373 .Va on-compose-done-shell
6375 .Va on-compose-done .
6376 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
6377 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
6378 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
6379 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
6380 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
6381 The status codes are:
6384 .Bl -tag -compact -width _210_
6386 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
6388 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
6389 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
6390 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
6391 plain address, e.g.,
6393 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
6394 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
6395 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
6397 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
6398 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
6399 terminated by an empty line.
6400 (All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before
6401 further commands can be issued.)
6403 Syntax error; invalid command.
6405 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
6407 Error: an argument fails verification.
6408 For example an invalid address has been specified.
6410 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
6411 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
6412 a single address only.
6416 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
6418 Most commands can fail with
6420 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
6421 The following commands are supported, and, as usual, case-insensitive:
6424 .Bl -hang -width header
6426 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
6427 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
6430 .Bl -hang -compact -width remove
6432 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
6434 this command is the default command of
6436 if no second argument has been given.
6437 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
6440 if no such field is defined.
6443 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
6444 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
6448 any failure results in
6452 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
6457 if no such header can be found.
6460 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
6461 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
6462 (the remains of the line).
6465 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
6466 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
6468 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks, and
6470 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
6472 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
6474 is returned upon success.
6479 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
6480 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
6483 .Bl -hang -compact -width remove
6485 List all attachments via
6489 if no attachments exist.
6490 This command is the default command of
6492 if no second argument has been given.
6495 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
6499 if no such attachment can be found.
6500 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
6501 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
6502 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
6503 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
6504 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
6507 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
6509 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
6510 will be searched for
6512 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
6513 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
6518 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
6519 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
6523 if the argument is not a number or
6525 if no such attachment exists.
6528 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
6529 documented for the command line option
6531 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
6535 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
6537 if the given file cannot be opened,
6539 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
6541 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
6542 requested but not available.
6545 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6547 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
6551 if no such attachment can be found.
6552 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
6553 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
6557 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6559 and is otherwise identical to
6562 .It Ar attribute-set
6563 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6565 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
6566 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
6567 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
6568 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
6569 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
6572 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
6574 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
6576 if no such attachment can be found.
6577 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
6579 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ql filename"
6581 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
6582 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
6583 .It Ql content-description
6584 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
6585 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
6587 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
6588 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
6591 upon address content verification failure.
6593 Specifies the media type and subtype of the part; managed automatically.
6594 .It Ql content-disposition
6595 Automatically set to the string
6599 .It Ar attribute-set-at
6600 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6602 and is otherwise identical to
6612 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
6613 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6615 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
6619 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
6623 has the same effect as using
6629 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
6634 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
6636 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
6637 Both commands support a more
6640 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
6643 implicitly, others can be explicitly imported with the command
6645 and henceforth share said properties.
6648 Two different kind of internal variables exist.
6649 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
6653 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
6654 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
6655 introduction of the section
6657 documents the supported quoting rules.
6659 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6660 wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
6661 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
6662 varshow one two three four; \e
6663 unset one two three four
6667 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
6668 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
6669 a special kind of string value, the
6670 .Dq boolean string ,
6671 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
6675 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
6681 for a false boolean and
6687 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
6689 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
6690 (case-insensitive) term
6694 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
6695 boolean as the default value.
6697 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
6698 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
6699 .Ss "Initial Settings"
6701 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
6707 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
6721 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
6723 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
6725 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
6733 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
6742 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
6744 variable \(en use command line options or
6746 to pass options through to a
6748 And the default global
6750 file, which is loaded unless the
6752 (with according argument) or
6754 command line options have been used, or the
6755 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
6756 environment variable is set, see
6757 .Sx "Resource files" )
6758 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
6763 to name a few, establishes a default
6765 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
6768 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
6771 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
6775 \*(RO The (hard) exit status of the last command.
6776 This exit status has a meaning for the state machine, in parts
6777 prescribed by the POSIX standard, and, e.g., for
6780 .Va batch-exit-on-error .
6781 This is why \*(UA also knows about a
6783 exit status, which is tracked in
6790 exit status of the last command, which, different to
6792 has no meaning for the state machine, and can therefore easily transport
6793 different error-indicating values.
6794 It is directly addressable with the command
6805 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6807 ed macro, this will expand to all parameters of the macro, separated by
6809 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
6811 are not yet supported.
6815 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6817 ed macro, this will expand to all parameters of the macro, separated by
6819 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
6821 are not yet supported.
6825 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6827 ed macro, this will expand to the number of positional parameters in
6832 \*(RO Available inside the scope of a
6836 ed macro, this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
6837 string if the macro is running from top-level.
6838 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
6840 this expands to the entire matching expression.
6844 \*(RO Available inside the scope of a
6848 ed macro, this will access the first positional parameter passed.
6849 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
6852 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
6854 Positional parameters are also accessible in the \*(OPal regular
6855 expression search and replace expression of
6860 \*(RO Is set to the active
6865 \*(RO Is set to the list of
6869 .It Va -folder-resolved
6870 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
6872 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
6875 .It Va -mailbox-display
6876 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
6878 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
6881 .It Va -mailbox-resolved
6882 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
6885 .It Va add-file-recipients
6886 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
6887 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
6888 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
6889 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
6893 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
6894 when comparing addresses.
6898 \*(BO Causes messages saved in
6900 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
6901 This should always be set.
6905 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject of each message sent.
6906 If the user responds with simply a newline,
6907 no subject field will be sent.
6911 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
6915 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
6919 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message,
6920 shall the list be found empty at that time.
6921 An empty line finalizes the list.
6925 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
6926 (at the end of each message if
6930 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
6931 An empty line finalizes the list.
6935 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
6936 recipients (at the end of each message if
6940 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
6941 An empty line finalizes the list.
6945 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
6946 signed at the end of each message.
6949 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
6953 \*(BO Alternative name for
6958 A sequence of characters to display in the
6962 as shown in the display of
6964 each for one type of messages (see
6965 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
6966 with the default being
6969 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
6972 variable is set, in the following order:
6974 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
6996 start of a collapsed thread.
6998 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
7002 classified as possible spam.
7008 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
7009 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
7013 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
7014 message will be sent automatically.
7018 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
7025 \*(BO Enable automatic
7027 ing of a(n existing)
7033 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
7035 is shown automatically, as via
7042 \*(BO\*(OB Causes threaded mode (see the
7044 command) to be entered automatically when a folder is opened.
7046 .Ql autosort=thread .
7050 Causes sorted mode (see the
7052 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
7053 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
7054 .Ql set autosort=thread .
7058 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
7061 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
7063 shell escape command and
7065 one of the compose mode
7066 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7067 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
7070 .It Va batch-exit-on-error
7071 If the batch mode has been enabled via the
7073 command line option, then this variable will be consulted whenever \*(UA
7074 completes one operation.
7075 It is ment as a convenient alternative to manually testing
7077 If any value is set, a number is expected; if it is
7079 then each failed operation will cause \*(UA to exit.
7081 \*(ID If it is set without a value, then only top-level operations that
7083 .Dq on the command-prompt ,
7084 i.e., neither in running macros nor from within source files etc., are
7085 considered, unless a main operation that directly affects the return
7086 value, like, e.g., a failed
7088 command, is affected; this mode of operation is likely to change in v15,
7089 and tests should be performed to see whether the desired effect is seen.
7093 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
7094 input, for example for function and other special keys.
7095 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
7096 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
7097 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
7098 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
7099 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
7105 \*(BO Causes automatic display of a header summary after executing a
7107 command, and thus complements the standard variable
7109 which controls header summary display on program startup.
7110 It is only meaningful if
7116 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
7117 has the same affect as setting
7119 and all other variables prefixed with
7121 it also changes the behaviour of
7123 (which does not exist in BSD).
7127 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
7128 summary to traditional BSD style.
7132 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
7137 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
7143 field to appear immediately after the
7145 field in message headers and with the
7147 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7151 The value that should appear in the
7155 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
7157 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
7158 US-ASCII compatible.
7162 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
7163 member of the variable
7165 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
7166 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise, in which case the only supported
7169 and this variable is effectively ignored.
7170 Refer to the section
7171 .Sx "Character sets"
7172 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
7175 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
7176 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
7178 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
7180 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
7181 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
7182 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
7184 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
7185 otherwise the (final) value of
7187 is used for this purpose.
7189 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
7190 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
7191 of a MIME message part that uses the
7193 character set is forcefully treated as text.
7197 The default value for the
7202 .It Va colour-disable
7203 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
7204 Also see the section
7205 .Sx "Coloured display" .
7209 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
7211 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
7219 in order to support colours.
7220 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
7221 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
7223 (see there for more).
7227 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
7228 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
7229 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
7233 can be forced by setting this to the value
7235 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
7236 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
7241 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
7242 format, which, dependent on the
7244 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
7245 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
7249 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
7250 forwarded messages; it is also possible to create custom headers in
7253 which can be automated by setting one of the hooks
7254 .Va on-compose-done-shell
7256 .Va on-compose-done .
7257 The value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom headers to
7258 be injected, to include commas in the header bodies escape them with
7260 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
7263 .Dl set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
7267 Controls the appearance of the
7269 date and time format specification of the
7271 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
7273 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
7274 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
7276 It is possible to assign a
7278 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
7280 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
7282 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
7284 .Va datefield-markout-older .
7287 .It Va datefield-markout-older
7288 Only used in conjunction with
7290 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
7291 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
7293 option of the POSIX utility
7295 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
7297 will be displayed, but a
7299 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
7305 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
7306 actual delivery of messages and also implies
7312 .It Va disposition-notification-send
7314 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
7315 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
7319 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
7321 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
7322 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
7323 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
7325 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
7326 .\"for a specific account.
7330 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
7332 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive) compose mode
7333 will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the normal end-of-file
7342 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
7343 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as
7345 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
7346 es (see, e.g., the notes on
7347 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7348 as well as the documentation of
7350 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
7351 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
7352 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
7353 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
7354 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
7355 fatal unless this variable is set.
7359 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
7360 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
7362 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7366 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
7370 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
7371 its header is included in the editable text.
7381 fields are accepted within the header, other fields are ignored.
7385 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
7386 .Dq \&No mail for user
7387 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
7388 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or nonexistent
7389 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
7396 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
7397 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
7398 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
7401 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
7404 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
7405 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
7406 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
7407 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
7408 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
7409 .It Ql quoted-printable
7411 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
7412 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
7413 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
7414 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
7415 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
7416 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
7417 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
7419 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
7420 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
7422 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
7423 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
7424 to four bytes of output.
7425 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
7431 If defined, the first character of the value of this variable
7432 gives the character to use in place of tilde
7435 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7436 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
7440 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
7441 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
7442 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
7443 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
7444 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
7446 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
7447 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
7451 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
7453 (it actually acts like
7454 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
7455 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
7457 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
7460 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
7461 send error instead of only filtering them out.
7462 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
7463 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
7465 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
7469 addresses all possible address specifications,
7473 command pipeline targets,
7475 plain user names and (MTA) aliases (\*(OB
7477 may be used as an alternative syntax to
7482 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
7483 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
7484 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
7485 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
7489 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
7491 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
7492 To change this and ensure that any encountered invalid email address
7493 instead causes a hard error, ensure the string
7495 is an entry in the above list.
7496 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
7497 (it actually acts like
7498 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
7499 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
7503 Unless this variable is set additional
7505 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
7506 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
7508 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
7509 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
7511 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
7512 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
7513 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
7515 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
7516 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
7523 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus sign
7525 if the feature is available, and a hyphen-minus
7528 The output of the command
7530 will include this information.
7534 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
7535 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
7536 included in the header of a message
7537 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
7538 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
7539 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
7542 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
7544 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
7545 are not affected by the current setting of
7550 .It Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION , file-hook-save-EXTENSION
7551 It is possible to install file hooks which will be used by the
7553 command in order to be able to transparently handle (through an
7554 intermediate temporary file) files with specific
7556 s: the variable values can include shell snippets and are expected to
7557 write data to standard output / read data from standard input,
7559 \*(ID The variables may not be changed while there is a mailbox
7561 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7562 set file-hook-load-xy='echo >&2 XY-LOAD; gzip -cd' \e
7563 file-hook-save-xy='echo >&2 XY-SAVE; gzip -c' \e
7564 record=+null-sent.xy
7569 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
7570 file names that begin with the plus sign
7572 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
7573 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
7574 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
7577 for more on this topic.
7578 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
7579 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
7583 will be prefixed automatically.
7587 This variable can be set to the name of a
7589 macro which will be called whenever a
7592 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
7593 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
7594 only include newly arrived messages then.
7596 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
7597 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
7600 Macro behaviour, including option localization, will change in v15.
7601 One should be aware of that and possibly embed version checks in the
7602 used resource file(s).
7605 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER
7610 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
7611 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
7612 However, if the mailbox resides under
7616 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
7620 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
7621 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
7623 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
7624 first, but then followed by
7625 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
7629 \*(BO Controls whether a
7630 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
7631 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
7633 .Va followup-to-honour
7635 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
7640 .It Va followup-to-honour
7642 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
7643 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
7647 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
7657 .It Va forward-as-attachment
7658 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
7661 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
7662 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
7664 attachments with all of their parts included.
7668 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
7670 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
7671 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
7672 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
7675 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
7679 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
7680 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
7682 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
7685 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
7689 contains more than one address,
7692 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
7694 If a file-based MTA is used, then
7696 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
7698 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
7699 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
7701 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
7702 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
7703 .Va r-option-implicit .
7707 \*(BO When replying to or forwarding a message \*(UA normally removes
7708 the comment and name parts of email addresses.
7709 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed,
7710 and comments, names etc. are retained.
7714 The string to put before the text of a message with the
7718 .Va forward-as-attachment
7721 .Dq -------- Original Message --------
7722 if unset; No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
7726 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
7727 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
7728 the current folder; enabled by default.
7729 The command line option
7735 complements this and controls header summary display on folder changes.
7740 A format string to use for the summary of
7742 similar to the ones used for
7745 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
7747 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
7748 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
7749 Valid format specifiers are:
7752 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
7754 A plain percent sign.
7757 a space character but for the current message
7759 for which it expands to
7763 a space character but for the current message
7765 for which it expands to
7768 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
7771 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
7773 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
7777 The date found in the
7779 header of the message when
7781 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
7782 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
7787 The indenting level in threaded mode.
7789 The address of the message sender.
7791 The message thread tree structure.
7792 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
7794 The number of lines of the message, if available.
7798 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
7800 Message subject (if any).
7802 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
7804 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
7805 subscribed mailing list \(en see
7810 The position in threaded/sorted order.
7814 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
7816 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
7827 .It Va headline-bidi
7828 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
7829 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
7830 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
7831 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
7832 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
7833 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
7835 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
7836 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
7837 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
7839 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
7840 fields that may occur when displaying
7842 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
7844 with special Unicode control sequences;
7845 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
7847 no value (or any value other than
7852 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
7853 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
7854 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
7856 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
7858 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
7860 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
7861 sequences onto the line).
7866 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
7867 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
7871 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
7872 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
7877 .It Va history-gabby
7878 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
7881 .It Va history-gabby-persist
7882 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
7884 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
7885 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
7886 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
7892 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
7894 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added, and
7895 loading and incorporation of the
7897 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
7898 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
7899 entries saved to permanent storage.
7903 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
7905 and it is set by default.
7909 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
7910 the value obtained from
7914 It is used, e.g., in
7918 fields, as well as when generating
7920 MIME part related unique ID fields.
7921 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
7922 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
7923 \*(IN in conjunction with the builtin SMTP
7926 also influences the results:
7927 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
7936 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
7937 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
7939 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
7941 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
7942 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
7946 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
7947 messages; instead echo them as
7949 characters and discard the current line.
7953 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
7954 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
7955 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
7956 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
7957 explicitly using one of the commands
7961 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
7964 on a line by itself or by using the
7966 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
7968 overrides a setting of
7973 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the users
7975 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
7978 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
7981 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
7984 for more on this topic.
7985 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
7993 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7996 option for indenting messages,
7997 in place of the normal tabulator character
7999 which is the default.
8000 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
8004 \*(BO If set, an empty system (MBOX) mailbox file is not removed.
8005 Note that, in conjunction with
8008 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
8009 any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
8010 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
8011 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
8012 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
8013 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
8014 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
8017 .It Va keep-content-length
8018 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing
8020 mailbox files \*(UA can be told to keep the
8024 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
8025 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
8026 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
8027 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
8028 work with with same mailbox files.
8029 Note that, if this is not set but
8030 .Va writebackedited ,
8031 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
8032 fields already marks the message as being modified.
8036 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
8037 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
8038 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
8041 .It Va line-editor-disable
8042 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
8043 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
8047 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
8048 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
8051 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
8052 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
8053 .Sx "Resource files" .
8054 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
8060 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
8061 it is marked as having been
8064 .Sx "Message states" .
8068 \*(BO If this is set then when opening MBOX mailbox files \*(UA will not
8069 use the tolerant POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
8071 lines), as it does by default for compatibility reasons, but the more
8072 strict rules that have been defined in RFC 4155.
8073 When saving to MBOX mailboxes this indicates when so-called
8075 quoting is to be applied \(em note this is never necessary for any
8076 message newly generated by \*(UA, it only applies to messages generated
8077 by buggy or malicious MUAs.
8078 (\*(UA will use a proper
8082 lines cannot be misinterpreted as message boundaries.)
8084 This should not be set normally, but may be handy when \*(UA complains
8085 about having seen invalid
8087 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case temporarily setting this
8088 variable, re-opening the mailbox in question, unsetting this variable
8089 again and then invoking
8090 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE
8091 will perform proper, POSIX-compliant
8093 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
8097 \*(BO Internal development variable.
8100 .It Va message-id-disable
8101 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
8103 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
8105 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
8106 (According to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
8107 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
8109 This variable also affects automatic generation of
8114 .It Va message-inject-head
8115 A string to put at the beginning of each new message.
8116 The escape sequences tabulator
8123 .It Va message-inject-tail
8124 A string to put at the end of each new message.
8125 The escape sequences tabulator
8133 \*(BO Usually, when an
8135 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
8136 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
8141 option to be passed through to the
8143 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
8144 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
8148 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
8149 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
8150 in order to classify the
8153 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
8156 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
8157 a computation rather similar to what the
8159 command produces when used with the
8163 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
8164 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
8165 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
8170 .Ql application/octet-stream :
8171 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
8173 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
8174 interpret the contents of the part.
8176 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
8177 text data at first glance (by a
8181 file extension), then the original
8183 will not be overwritten.
8186 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
8187 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
8188 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
8189 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
8190 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
8191 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
8192 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
8193 contains topic subjects.)
8196 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
8199 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
8200 Some MUAs however do not use
8202 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but simply specify
8203 .Ql application/octet-stream ,
8204 even for plain text attachments like
8206 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to classify such MIME
8207 message parts on its own, if possible, for example via a possibly
8208 existing attachment filename.
8209 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
8210 actually a carrier of bits.
8211 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
8212 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8213 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
8214 Value should be set to 14
8217 .Bl -bullet -compact
8219 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
8221 content-type will be carried along with the message and be used for
8223 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8224 is responsible for the MIME part, shall that question arise;
8225 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
8226 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
8229 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
8230 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
8231 overriding the parts given MIME type.
8233 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
8234 .Ql application/octet-stream
8235 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
8240 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
8241 Can be used to control which of the
8243 databases are loaded by \*(UA, as furtherly described in the section
8244 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
8247 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
8249 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
8251 controls loading of the system wide
8252 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
8253 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
8255 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
8256 Incorporation of the \*(UA-builtin MIME types cannot be suppressed,
8257 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
8260 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
8261 value string contains an equals sign
8263 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
8266 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
8267 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
8268 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
8269 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
8270 the MIME type cache).
8275 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
8276 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
8278 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
8280 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8283 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
8284 The default has been chosen at compie time.
8285 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
8286 run asynchronously, and without supervision, unless either the
8291 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
8298 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
8300 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
8303 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
8306 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
8309 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
8314 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
8315 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
8316 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
8317 (which will also disable passing
8321 (for not treating a line with only a dot
8323 character as the end of input),
8331 variable is set); in conjunction with the
8333 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
8339 \*(OP \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
8340 defined SMTP smarthost, the access URL of which has to be assigned to
8342 To use this mode it is helpful to read
8343 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
8344 It may be necessary to set the
8346 variable in order to use a specific combination of
8351 with some mail providers.
8354 .Bl -bullet -compact
8356 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
8357 server port 25 and requires setting the
8358 .Va smtp-use-starttls
8359 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
8360 Assign a value like \*(IN
8361 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8363 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
8364 to choose this protocol.
8366 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
8367 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
8368 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
8369 be supported by your hosts network service database
8370 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
8373 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
8374 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
8375 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8377 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
8378 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
8383 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
8384 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
8385 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
8386 .Va smtp-use-starttls
8387 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
8388 Assign a value like \*(IN
8389 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8391 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
8396 .It Va mta-arguments
8397 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
8399 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
8400 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
8401 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
8402 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
8404 .Dl wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"'
8407 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
8408 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
8409 standard command line options to a file-based
8411 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
8415 Many systems use a so-called
8417 environment to ensure compatibility with
8419 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
8421 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
8422 actually executed when calling the file-based
8424 will treat its contents as that name.
8429 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
8430 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
8432 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
8433 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
8437 .Sx "The .netrc file"
8438 documents the file format.
8450 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
8452 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
8453 This can be used to, e.g., store
8457 .Dl set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
8461 If this variable has the value
8463 newly created local folders will be in Maildir format.
8467 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
8468 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
8469 If this variable is set to the special value
8471 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
8472 timestamp changes are detected.
8476 .It Va on-compose-done-shell , on-compose-done
8477 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
8478 .Va on-compose-leave
8479 macro hook is called, the
8482 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
8483 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
8485 The difference in between them is that the former is a
8487 command, whereas the latter is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
8488 restricted to a small set of commands (the
8492 will indicate said capability), just enough for the purpose of
8493 controlling the real \*(UA instance sufficiently.
8495 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
8496 to be forgotten after the message has been sent.
8498 During execution of these hook \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
8499 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
8500 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8501 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproduceabilities sake
8503 will be set to its default.
8504 The compose mode command
8506 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
8507 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
8508 version of said command escape, currently
8510 backward incompatible protocol changes are to be expected in the
8511 future, and it is advisable to make use of the protocol version.
8512 \*(ID because most \*(UA commands do not take this new functionality
8513 into account but are ment for human interaction special care must be
8514 taken to avoid deadlocks because of unexpected control flow; i.e., that
8515 both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the same time,
8516 or one doesn't expect more input but the other is stuck waiting for
8517 consumation of its output.
8518 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8519 wysh set on-compose-done-shell=$'\e
8521 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
8522 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
8523 read status result;\e
8524 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
8527 set on-compose-done=ocdm
8530 echo version is $ver, escape=$escape
8531 if [ "$features" !@ +regex ]
8532 echoerr 'Need regular-expression support, aborting send'
8535 echo '~^header list'
8538 echoerr 'Failed to read header list, bailing out'
8541 if [ "$hl" !@ ' cc' ]
8542 echo '~^header insert cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'
8545 echoerr 'Failed to insert Cc: header, bailing out'
8549 echo '~:set from="Hoola Hoop <hh@exam.ple>"'
8555 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
8556 Macro hooks which will be executed before compose mode is entered, and
8557 after composing has been finished (but before the
8559 is injected, etc.), respectively.
8561 are enabled for these hooks, causing any setting to be forgotten after
8562 the message has been sent.
8563 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
8564 execution of the macros:
8566 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va compose_subject"
8569 .It Va compose-sender
8571 .It Va compose-to , compose-cc , compose-bcc
8572 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
8573 .It Va compose-subject
8579 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
8582 and the sender-based filenames for the
8586 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
8588 variable rather than to the current directory,
8589 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
8593 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
8595 is followed by a formfeed character
8599 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
8600 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
8601 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
8602 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
8603 the authentication method requires a password.
8604 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
8605 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
8607 .It Va password-USER@HOST
8608 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
8609 Set the password for
8613 If no such variable is defined for a host,
8614 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
8615 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
8616 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
8620 \*(BO Send messages to the
8622 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
8626 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8627 When a MIME message part of type
8629 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
8630 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
8634 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
8635 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
8636 will henceforth display XML
8638 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
8641 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
8642 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
8643 \(em corresponding flag strings are shown in parenthesis below.)
8648 can in fact be used to adjust usage and behaviour of a following shell
8649 command specification by appending trigger characters to it, e.g., the
8650 following hypothetical command specification could be used:
8651 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8652 set pipe-X/Y='@*!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
8656 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
8658 Simply by using the special
8660 prefix the MIME type (shell command) handler will only be invoked to
8661 display or convert the MIME part if the message is addressed directly
8662 and alone by itself.
8663 Use this trigger to disable this and always invoke the handler
8664 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-always ) .
8667 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
8668 but only when it will be displayed
8669 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-noquote ) .
8672 The command will be run asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA,
8673 which may be a handy way to display a, e.g., PDF file while also
8674 continuing to read the mail message
8675 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-async ) .
8676 Asynchronous execution implies
8680 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
8681 temporarily release the terminal to it
8682 .Pf ( Cd needsterminal ) .
8683 This flag is mutual exclusive with
8685 will only be used in interactive mode and implies
8689 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
8690 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
8691 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8692 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ) .
8693 If this trigger is given twice then the file will be unlinked
8694 automatically by \*(UA when the command loop is entered again at latest
8695 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink ) .
8696 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
8699 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
8700 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
8701 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8702 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
8703 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
8704 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
8709 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
8710 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
8711 remaining characters.
8712 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
8716 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
8717 the environment of the shell command:
8720 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
8722 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
8723 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
8726 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
8728 .Va mime-counter-evidence
8729 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
8730 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
8731 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
8735 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
8736 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
8739 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
8743 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8744 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
8745 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
8751 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
8752 This is identical to
8753 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8756 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
8757 names a file extension, e.g.,
8759 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
8762 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
8763 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
8764 The only possible value as of now is
8766 which is thus the default.
8769 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
8770 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
8771 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
8772 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
8773 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
8775 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
8776 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
8778 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
8779 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
8780 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
8781 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
8782 but practical experience may vary.
8783 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
8787 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
8790 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
8791 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
8793 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
8797 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
8798 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
8800 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
8803 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
8804 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
8805 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
8807 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
8808 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
8809 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
8811 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
8816 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
8817 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
8818 It will be set implicitly before the
8819 .Sx "Resource files"
8820 are loaded if the environment variable
8822 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
8826 .It Va print-alternatives
8827 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
8828 .Ql multipart/alternative
8829 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
8831 other parts are normally discarded.
8832 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
8833 just as if the surrounding part was of type
8834 .Ql multipart/mixed .
8838 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
8839 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is expanded as via
8840 dollar-single-quote expansion (see
8841 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
8842 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
8843 status information, for example
8848 .Va -mailbox-display .
8850 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
8851 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
8852 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
8854 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
8856 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
8858 .Ql set noprompt ) .
8862 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
8869 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
8873 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
8874 prefixed by the value of the variable
8876 Normally, a heading consisting of
8877 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
8878 is put before the quotation.
8883 variable, this heading is omitted.
8886 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
8889 selection are put above the message body,
8892 acts like an automatic
8894 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8898 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
8899 parts are included, making
8901 act like an automatic
8904 .Va quote-as-attachment .
8907 .It Va quote-as-attachment
8908 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
8910 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
8911 Note this works regardless of the setting of
8916 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
8918 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
8919 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
8921 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
8922 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
8923 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
8925 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
8926 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
8927 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
8929 plus some additional pad.
8930 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
8933 .It Va r-option-implicit
8934 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
8936 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
8938 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
8940 option (empty argument case).
8943 .It Va recipients-in-cc
8944 \*(BO On group replies, specify only the sender of the original mail in
8946 and mention the other recipients in the secondary
8948 By default all recipients of the original mail will be addressed via
8953 If defined, gives the pathname of the folder used to record all outgoing
8955 If not defined, then outgoing mail is not saved.
8956 When saving to this folder fails the message is not sent,
8957 but instead saved to
8961 .It Va record-resent
8962 \*(BO If both this variable and the
8969 commands save messages to the
8971 folder as it is normally only done for newly composed messages.
8974 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
8975 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
8976 character set of the original message for replies.
8977 If this fails, the mechanism described in
8978 .Sx "Character sets"
8979 is evaluated as usual.
8982 .It Va reply-strings
8983 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
8984 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
8987 reply message indicators \(en builtin are
8989 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
8994 which often has been seen in the wild;
8995 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
8999 A list of addresses to put into the
9001 field of the message header.
9002 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
9007 .It Va reply-to-honour
9010 header is honoured when replying to a message via
9014 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
9018 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
9019 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
9021 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
9023 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
9027 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
9029 upon interrupt or delivery error.
9033 The number of lines that represents a
9042 line display and scrolling via
9044 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
9045 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
9046 terminal, the more will be shown.
9047 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
9048 environment variables
9056 .It Va searchheaders
9057 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
9059 to all messages containing the substring
9063 The string search is case insensitive.
9067 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
9068 outgoing internet mail.
9069 The value of the variable
9071 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
9072 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
9073 the only supported charset is
9076 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
9077 and refer to the section
9078 .Sx "Character sets"
9079 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
9082 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
9083 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
9085 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
9087 had been set to the value of the variable
9089 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
9090 character set of the current locale (given that
9092 has not been set manually), i.e., without converting it to the
9094 fallback character set.
9095 Thus, mail message text will be in ISO-8859-1 encoding when send from
9096 within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8 encoding when send from within
9098 If no character set conversion capabilities are available in \*(UA then
9099 the only supported character set is
9104 An address that is put into the
9106 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
9107 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
9108 This field should normally not be used unless the
9110 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
9113 address is handled as if it were in the
9117 .Va r-option-implicit .
9121 \*(OB Predecessor of
9125 .It Va sendmail-arguments
9126 \*(OB Predecessor of
9130 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
9131 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
9132 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
9135 .It Va sendmail-progname
9136 \*(OB Predecessor of
9141 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
9143 (including the builtin SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
9145 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
9146 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
9147 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
9151 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
9152 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
9156 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
9157 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
9161 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
9162 summary if the message was sent by the user.
9166 The string to expand
9169 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
9173 The string to expand
9176 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
9180 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
9181 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart message
9182 and to the first part of each multipart message.
9183 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signature for an
9187 .It Va skipemptybody
9188 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
9189 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
9195 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
9196 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
9197 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
9198 purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
9199 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
9200 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
9201 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
9202 be explicitly turned off by setting
9203 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
9204 and further fine-tuning is possible via
9205 .Va smime-ca-flags .
9208 .It Va smime-ca-flags
9209 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
9210 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
9211 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
9215 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
9216 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
9217 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
9220 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
9221 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
9222 messages (for the specified account).
9223 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
9226 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
9234 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
9236 is not available) and
9240 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
9241 library that \*(UA uses.
9242 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
9243 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
9244 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
9245 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
9248 .It Va smime-crl-dir
9249 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
9250 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
9253 .It Va smime-crl-file
9254 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
9255 verifying S/MIME messages.
9258 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
9259 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
9260 encrypted before sending.
9261 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
9262 contains a certificate in PEM format.
9264 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
9265 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
9266 individually encrypted message;
9267 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
9269 .Va smime-force-encryption
9271 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
9276 .It Va smime-force-encryption
9277 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
9281 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
9282 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
9283 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
9284 a valid certificate,
9285 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
9286 header and that the message content has not been altered.
9287 It does not change the message text,
9288 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
9290 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
9292 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
9294 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
9295 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
9296 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
9297 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
9298 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
9302 is always derived from the value of
9304 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9306 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
9307 (certificate) is expected; the command
9309 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
9310 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
9311 gives some details).
9312 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
9314 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
9319 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
9321 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
9322 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
9323 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
9325 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
9326 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
9327 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
9330 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
9331 for the certificate stored in the same file)
9332 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
9333 therefore the lookup can be automatized via the mechanisms described in
9334 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
9335 For example, the hypothetical address
9337 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
9338 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
9339 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
9340 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
9342 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
9343 To include intermediate certificates, use
9344 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
9346 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
9347 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
9348 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
9349 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
9350 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
9353 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
9354 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
9355 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
9356 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
9357 .Va smime-sign-cert .
9358 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
9359 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
9361 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
9363 refers to the content of the internal variable
9365 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9368 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
9369 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
9370 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automatized
9371 via the mechanisms described in
9372 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
9374 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
9375 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
9376 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
9377 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
9379 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
9387 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
9388 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
9389 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
9390 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
9391 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
9392 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
9393 Remember that for this
9395 refers to the variable
9397 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9402 \*(OB\*(OP To use the builtin SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
9404 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
9406 is used in preference of
9410 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
9411 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
9413 authentication method, possible values are
9419 as well as the \*(OPal methods
9425 method does not need any user credentials,
9427 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
9435 .Va smtp-auth-password
9437 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
9442 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
9443 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
9446 .It Va smtp-auth-password
9447 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
9448 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
9449 .Va smtp-auth-password
9451 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
9453 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
9455 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
9457 .Va smtp-auth-password
9458 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
9461 .It Va smtp-auth-user
9462 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
9463 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
9466 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
9468 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
9470 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
9473 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
9477 .It Va smtp-hostname
9478 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
9480 to derive the necessary
9482 information in order to issue a
9489 can be used to use the
9491 from the SMTP account
9498 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
9500 or the local hostname as a last resort).
9501 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
9502 a provider other than which (in
9504 is about to send the message.
9505 Setting this variable also influences generated
9511 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
9512 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
9513 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
9515 command to make an SMTP
9517 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
9521 .It Va spam-interface
9522 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
9524 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
9525 Please refer to the manual section
9527 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
9528 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
9530 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
9536 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
9538 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
9539 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
9540 knowledge to parse the program's output.
9543 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
9548 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
9549 using a configuration file for that), the variable
9551 can be used as in, e.g.,
9552 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
9553 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
9555 Note that this interface does not inspect the
9557 flag of a message for the command
9561 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
9562 This interface is meant for programs like
9564 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
9565 status for at least the command
9568 meaning a message is spam,
9572 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
9573 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
9574 can be intercepted as necessary.
9576 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
9579 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
9582 contains examples for some programs.
9583 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
9584 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
9586 Note that spam score support for
9588 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
9590 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
9597 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
9599 .Va spam-interface .
9600 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
9603 .It Va spamc-command
9604 \*(OP The path to the
9608 .Va spam-interface .
9609 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
9611 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
9612 executable had been found during compilation.
9615 .It Va spamc-arguments
9616 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
9619 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
9620 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
9621 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
9625 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
9627 .Va spam-interface .
9628 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
9637 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
9638 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
9639 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
9641 .Va spam-interface .
9644 contains examples for some programs.
9647 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
9648 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
9651 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
9652 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
9653 be used to overcome this restriction.
9654 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
9655 must be followed by a semicolon
9657 and an extended regular expression.
9658 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
9660 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
9661 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
9665 .It Va ssl-ca-dir , ssl-ca-file
9666 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
9667 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
9668 purpose of verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
9669 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
9670 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
9671 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
9672 be explicitly turned off by setting
9673 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
9674 and further fine-tuning is possible via
9677 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
9678 for more information.
9683 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
9684 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
9686 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
9687 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
9688 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
9689 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
9690 which are usually defined in a file
9691 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
9692 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
9693 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
9695 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
9698 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
9699 .It Cd no-alt-chains
9700 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
9702 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
9703 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
9704 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
9706 .It Cd no-check-time
9707 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
9708 .It Cd partial-chain
9709 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
9710 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
9711 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
9712 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
9714 The OpenSSL manual page
9715 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
9716 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
9718 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
9719 .It Cd trusted-first
9720 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
9721 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
9722 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
9723 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
9729 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
9730 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
9731 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
9734 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
9735 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for a SSL/TLS client
9736 certificate required by some servers.
9737 This is a direct interface to the
9741 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
9743 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
9744 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
9745 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
9746 This is a direct interface to the
9750 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
9752 for more information.
9753 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
9755 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
9756 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
9757 supports \(en the manual section
9758 .Sx "An example configuration"
9759 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
9762 .It Va ssl-config-file
9763 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
9764 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
9765 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
9767 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
9768 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
9769 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
9770 The application name will always be passed as
9775 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
9776 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
9777 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
9780 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
9781 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for the private key of
9782 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
9783 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
9784 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
9785 This is a direct interface to the
9789 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
9792 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
9793 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
9795 instead: if both values are set,
9797 will take precedence!
9798 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
9800 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
9802 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
9804 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
9806 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
9809 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
9814 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
9815 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
9818 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
9819 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
9820 This is a direct interface to the
9824 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
9825 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
9826 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
9832 as well as the special value
9834 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
9835 ignores any whitespace.
9838 plus sign prefix will enable a protocol, a
9840 hyphen-minus prefix will disable it, so that
9842 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
9844 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
9845 supported and which protocols are used if
9847 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
9849 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
9851 may be worthwile, see
9852 .Sx "An example configuration" .
9856 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
9858 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
9861 .It Va ssl-rand-file
9862 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
9863 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
9864 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
9865 .Sx "Filename transformations"
9867 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
9868 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
9870 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
9871 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
9872 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
9873 This variable is only used if
9875 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
9878 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
9879 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
9880 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
9881 specified or default trust stores
9884 or the SSL/TLS library builtin defaults (unless usage disallowed via
9885 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
9886 and as fine-tuned via
9888 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
9890 (fail and close connection immediately),
9892 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
9894 (show a warning and continue),
9896 (do not perform validation).
9902 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
9908 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
9909 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
9910 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
9911 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
9912 to track down the originating mail user agent.
9919 suppression does not occur.
9924 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
9929 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
9930 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
9932 Note that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and
9933 can thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
9936 String capabilities form
9938 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
9939 Numerics have to be notated as
9941 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
9942 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
9943 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
9944 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
9945 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
9946 for one notations like
9949 .Ql control-LETTER ,
9950 and for clarification purposes
9952 can be used to specify
9954 (the control notation
9956 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
9957 the standard CSI sequence);
9958 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
9961 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
9962 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
9964 .Bd -literal -offset indent
9965 set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
9969 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
9970 operation of the builtin line editor or \*(UA in general:
9973 .Bl -tag -compact -width yay
9975 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
9977 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
9978 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
9979 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
9982 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
9986 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen
9988 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
9989 To disable that, set (at least) one to the empty string.
9991 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
9995 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
9996 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
9997 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
9998 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
10000 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
10004 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
10006 clear the screen and home cursor.
10007 (Will be simulated via
10012 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
10017 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
10019 clear to the end of line.
10020 (Will be simulated via
10022 plus repetitions of space characters.)
10024 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
10025 .Cd column_address :
10026 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
10027 (Will be simulated via
10033 .Cd carriage_return :
10034 move to the first column in the current row.
10035 The default builtin fallback is
10038 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
10040 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
10041 The default builtin fallback is
10044 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
10046 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
10047 The default builtin fallback is
10049 which is used by most terminals.
10057 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
10061 .It Va termcap-disable
10062 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
10063 If set only some generic fallback builtins and possibly the content of
10065 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
10067 that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
10068 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
10072 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
10075 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
10078 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
10079 unsigned right shifting (see
10087 \*(BO If set then the
10089 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
10093 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
10094 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
10095 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
10096 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
10099 locale environment.
10100 It defaults to UTF-8 if conversion is available.
10101 Refer to the section
10102 .Sx "Character sets"
10103 for the complete picture about character sets.
10106 .It Va typescript-mode
10107 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
10108 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
10111 .Va colour-disable ,
10112 .Va line-editor-disable
10113 and (before startup completed only)
10114 .Va termcap-disable .
10115 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
10119 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
10123 but this variable can be used to override that:
10124 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting,
10125 otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to the new value.
10126 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
10129 .It Va user-HOST , user
10130 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
10131 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
10133 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
10137 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
10138 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
10139 how they are handled.
10140 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
10141 doing things, respectively.
10145 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
10147 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
10148 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
10149 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
10150 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
10151 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
10154 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
10160 .It Va version , version-major , version-minor , version-update
10161 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
10162 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
10163 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
10164 The output of the command
10166 will include this information.
10169 .It Va writebackedited
10170 If this variable is set messages modified using the
10174 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
10175 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
10176 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
10177 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
10178 performed, and proper RFC 4155
10180 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
10183 .\" }}} (Variables)
10184 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
10187 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
10191 .Dq environment variable
10192 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
10193 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
10194 commonly found in there.
10195 The process environment is inherited from the
10197 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
10198 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
10199 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
10200 from \*(UA's point of view.
10201 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
10205 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
10206 newly created child processes).
10209 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
10210 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
10212 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
10213 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
10214 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
10216 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
10218 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
10220 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10221 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
10223 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
10226 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
10229 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
10231 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
10232 processes and the MLE (see
10233 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
10234 in interactive mode thereafter.
10238 The name of the (mailbox)
10240 to use for saving aborted messages if
10242 is set; this defaults to
10249 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
10254 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
10258 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10259 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
10263 The user's home directory.
10264 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10271 .It Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_COLLATE , LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES
10275 .Sx "Character sets" .
10279 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
10280 or window size in lines.
10281 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
10282 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
10286 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
10288 command when operating on local mailboxes.
10291 (path search through
10296 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
10297 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
10298 name to any newly created child process.
10302 Is used as the users
10304 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
10308 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
10312 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
10313 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
10314 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
10315 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
10316 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
10317 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
10318 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
10322 Is used as a startup file instead of
10325 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
10326 either this variable should be set to
10330 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
10331 reading their configuration files.
10332 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10335 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
10336 If this variable is set then reading of
10338 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
10339 had been started up with the option
10341 (and according argument) or
10343 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10347 The name of the users mbox file.
10348 A logical subset of the special
10349 .Sx "Filename transformations"
10353 The fallback default is
10360 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
10361 is used as the file to save messages from the
10363 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
10364 that have been read.
10366 .Sx "Message states" .
10370 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
10376 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
10380 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
10381 The default paginator is
10383 (path search through
10386 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
10388 then a non-existing environment variable
10395 dependent on whether terminal control support is available and whether
10396 that supports full (alternative) screen mode or not (also see
10397 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ) .
10401 will optionally be set to
10408 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
10409 looking for commands, e.g.,
10410 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
10413 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
10414 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
10420 The shell to use for the commands
10425 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10426 and when starting subprocesses.
10427 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
10430 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
10431 If set, this specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch
10432 (1970-01-01) to be used in place of the current time.
10433 This is for the sake of reproduceability of tests, to be used during
10434 development or by software packagers.
10438 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
10439 For extended colour and font control please refer to
10440 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
10441 and for terminal management in general to
10442 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
10446 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
10449 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
10450 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
10451 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
10457 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
10458 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
10462 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
10466 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10474 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
10476 File giving initial commands.
10479 System wide initialization file.
10483 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
10484 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
10485 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
10488 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
10489 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
10490 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
10491 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
10494 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
10495 Personal MIME types, see
10496 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
10499 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
10500 System wide MIME types, see
10501 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
10505 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
10507 file \(en the section
10508 .Sx "The .netrc file"
10509 documents the file format.
10512 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
10513 .Ss "The mime.types files"
10515 When sending messages \*(UA tries to determine the content type of all
10517 When displaying message content or attachments \*(UA uses the content
10518 type to decide whether it can directly display data or whether it needs
10519 to deal with content handlers.
10520 It learns about M(ultipurpose) I(nternet) M(ail) E(xtensions) types and
10521 how to treat them by reading
10523 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
10524 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
10527 can also be used to deal with MIME types.)
10529 files have the following syntax:
10532 .Dl type/subtype extension [extension ...]
10537 are strings describing the file contents, and one or multiple
10539 s, separated by whitespace, name the part of a filename starting after
10540 the last dot (of interest).
10541 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
10543 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
10545 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in specially
10546 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
10547 .Va mimetypes-load-control
10548 and prepends an optional
10552 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
10555 The following type markers are supported:
10558 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
10560 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
10565 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
10566 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
10567 the content as plain text instead.
10571 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
10572 handler to be defined.
10577 for sending messages:
10579 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
10580 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
10581 For reading etc. messages:
10582 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
10583 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
10585 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
10586 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
10587 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
10588 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
10591 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
10592 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
10594 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
10595 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
10597 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
10598 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports.
10599 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
10600 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
10601 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
10602 etc. MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that includes
10603 multiple possible locations of
10607 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
10608 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
10609 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
10610 the list of MIME type handler directives.
10614 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
10615 Comment lines start with a number sign
10617 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
10618 Empty lines are also ignored.
10619 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
10621 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
10622 follow lines if newline characters are
10624 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
10626 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
10627 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
10631 entries consist of a number of semicolon
10633 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
10635 character can be used to escape any following character including
10636 semicolon and itself.
10637 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
10638 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
10639 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
10642 The first field defines the MIME
10644 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
10645 escaping is possible in this field).
10646 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
10648 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
10650 would match any audio type.
10651 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
10653 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
10660 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
10661 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
10664 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
10665 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
10668 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
10669 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
10671 In any case any given
10673 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
10674 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
10676 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
10677 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
10678 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
10680 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10681 flags had been set; see below for more.
10684 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
10685 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
10686 naming the field followed by an equals sign
10688 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
10690 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
10691 Optional fields include the following:
10694 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
10696 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
10698 (Currently unused.)
10700 .It Cd composetyped
10703 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
10705 header field to be applied to the composed data.
10706 (Currently unused.)
10709 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
10711 (Currently unused.)
10714 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
10716 (Currently unused.)
10719 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
10720 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
10721 this mailcap entry applies.
10722 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
10723 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
10725 .It Cd needsterminal
10726 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
10727 an interactive terminal.
10728 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
10729 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
10730 ignored; this flag implies
10731 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
10733 .It Cd copiousoutput
10734 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
10736 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
10737 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
10738 It is mutually exclusive with
10741 .Cd x-mailx-always .
10743 .It Cd textualnewlines
10744 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
10745 that, if encoded in
10747 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
10748 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
10749 (Currently unused.)
10751 .It Cd nametemplate
10752 This field gives a file name format, in which
10754 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
10755 will be used as the filename denoted by
10756 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
10757 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
10758 have a name ending in
10761 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
10762 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
10763 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
10764 characters, the underscore and dot only.
10767 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
10768 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
10769 This field is not used by \*(UA.
10772 A textual description that describes this type of data.
10774 .It Cd x-mailx-always
10775 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
10777 command shall be executed even if multiple messages will be displayed
10779 Normally messages which require external viewers that produce output
10780 which does not integrate into \*(UA's visual display (i.e., do not have
10782 set) have to be addressed directly and individually.
10783 (To avoid cases where, e.g., a thousand PDF viewer instances are spawned
10786 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
10787 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
10789 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
10790 then their use will be considered.
10791 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
10792 .Cd needsterminal .
10794 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
10795 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
10798 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
10799 (as it would be by default).
10801 .It Cd x-mailx-async
10802 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
10804 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
10805 Cannot be used in conjunction with
10806 .Cd needsterminal .
10808 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
10809 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
10811 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
10812 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
10813 .Dq running under the X Window System .
10815 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
10816 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
10817 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
10818 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
10819 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10823 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
10824 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
10825 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
10827 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
10828 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
10829 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10831 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10835 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10836 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
10837 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
10838 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
10839 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10841 format, or without also setting
10842 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
10844 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
10846 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
10849 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
10851 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
10853 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
10858 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
10859 entry fields, prefixed by
10861 Flag fields apply to the entire
10863 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
10864 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
10865 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
10866 one does not provide enough information.
10869 command needs to specify the
10873 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
10877 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
10879 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10880 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
10881 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
10885 In fields any occurrence of the format string
10887 will be replaced by the
10890 Named parameters from the
10892 field may be placed in the command execution line using
10894 followed by the parameter name and a closing
10897 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
10898 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
10900 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10902 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
10905 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
10906 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
10908 # Executed shell command
10909 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
10913 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
10914 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
10915 shown in this example (as of today).
10916 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
10920 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
10922 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
10923 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
10924 in additional user-provided quotes:
10926 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10928 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
10930 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
10932 application/pdf; \e
10934 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
10935 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
10937 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
10939 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
10940 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
10941 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
10946 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
10947 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
10950 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
10951 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
10952 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
10955 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
10956 .Ss "The .netrc file"
10960 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
10961 The default location in the user's
10963 directory may be overridden by the
10965 environment variable.
10966 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
10967 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
10968 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
10969 of that file format, shall their
10971 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
10974 .Bl -bullet -compact
10976 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
10977 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
10979 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
10980 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
10982 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
10984 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
10986 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
10987 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
10988 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
10990 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
10991 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
10992 whitespace, with a number sign
10994 then the rest of the line is ignored.
10996 Whereas other programs may require that the
10998 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
11000 token for any other
11004 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
11008 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
11013 At runtime the command
11015 can be used to control \*(UA's
11019 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
11020 .It Cd machine Ar name
11021 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
11023 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
11028 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
11031 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
11032 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
11034 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11035 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
11036 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
11037 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
11043 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
11047 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
11048 Note that in the example neither
11049 .Ql pop3.example.com
11051 .Ql smtp.example.com
11052 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
11053 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
11056 This is the same as
11058 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
11059 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
11060 and it must be the last first-class token.
11062 .It Cd login Ar name
11063 The user name on the remote machine.
11065 .It Cd password Ar string
11066 The user's password on the remote machine.
11068 .It Cd account Ar string
11069 Supply an additional account password.
11070 This is merely for FTP purposes.
11072 .It Cd macdef Ar name
11074 A macro is defined with the specified
11076 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
11077 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
11080 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
11081 defined following the
11083 they are intended to be used with.)
11086 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
11087 This is merely for FTP purposes.
11094 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
11097 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
11098 .Ss "An example configuration"
11100 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11101 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
11104 # Request strict transport security checks!
11105 set ssl-verify=strict
11107 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
11108 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
11109 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
11110 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
11111 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
11112 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
11113 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
11114 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
11115 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
11117 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
11118 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
11119 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
11120 # such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
11121 # set ssl-protocol-exam.ple='-ALL,+TLSv1.1'
11122 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
11124 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
11125 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
11126 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
11127 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
11128 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
11129 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH
11130 # TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
11131 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
11132 # ALL:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
11134 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
11135 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
11137 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
11138 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
11139 set reply-in-same-charset
11141 # When replying to or forwarding a message the comment and name
11142 # parts of email addresses are removed unless this variable is set
11145 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
11146 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
11147 # exit status of the MTA (including the builtin SMTP one)!
11150 # Only use builtin MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
11151 set mimetypes-load-control
11153 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
11155 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
11156 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
11157 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox record=+sent.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt
11159 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
11160 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
11162 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
11163 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11165 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
11166 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
11167 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
11168 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
11169 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
11172 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
11174 colour-pager crt= \e
11175 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
11176 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
11177 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
11178 prompt='?\e?!\e![\e${-account}#\e${-mailbox-display}]? ' \e
11179 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
11182 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
11183 headerpick type retain add from_ date from to cc subject \e
11184 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
11185 # ...when forwarding messages
11186 headerpick forward retain add subject date from to cc
11187 # ...when saving message, etc.
11188 #headerpick save ignore add ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
11190 # Some mailing lists
11191 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
11192 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
11194 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
11196 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11197 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
11198 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
11201 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
11202 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
11203 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
11204 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
11205 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
11206 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
11208 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11209 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11210 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.ru:465 \e
11211 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
11214 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
11215 wysh ghost lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
11216 wysh ghost llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
11217 wysh ghost ls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFrS'
11218 wysh ghost lS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFS'
11219 wysh ghost lla '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlr'
11220 wysh ghost llA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFl'
11221 wysh ghost la '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFr'
11222 wysh ghost lA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aF'
11223 wysh ghost ll '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFltr'
11224 wysh ghost lL '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlt'
11225 wysh ghost l '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFtr'
11226 wysh ghost L '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFt'
11228 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
11229 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
11232 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
11233 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
11234 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
11236 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
11239 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
11240 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
11241 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
11245 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
11246 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
11256 !printf 'Key IDs to gpg --recv-keys: ';\e
11258 gpg --recv-keys ${keyids};
11264 When storing passwords in
11266 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
11267 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
11270 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
11272 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
11273 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
11275 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11280 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11281 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11283 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
11284 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
11286 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
11287 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
11288 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
11289 ghost xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
11298 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11299 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
11303 This configuration should now work just fine:
11306 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -vv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
11309 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
11310 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
11312 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
11313 message signing and message encryption.
11314 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
11315 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
11316 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
11317 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
11318 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
11319 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
11323 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
11324 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
11325 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
11326 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
11328 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
11329 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
11331 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
11332 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
11336 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
11337 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
11338 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
11339 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
11341 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
11343 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
11344 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
11346 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
11347 to avoid using the default certificate and point
11351 to a trusted pool of certificates.
11352 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
11353 certificate has been retrieved with.
11356 The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message exchange is
11357 your personal certificate, including a private key.
11358 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
11359 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
11360 encrypt messages for you,
11361 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
11362 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
11363 The private key must be kept secret.
11364 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
11365 public key, and to sign messages.
11368 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
11369 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
11370 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
11372 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
11373 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
11374 community for free; their root certificate
11375 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
11376 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
11377 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
11378 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
11381 or as a vivid member of the
11382 .Va smime-ca-file .
11383 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
11384 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
11387 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
11388 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
11389 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
11390 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
11391 entries of the web interface.
11392 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
11393 .Dq client certificate ,
11394 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
11395 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
11399 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
11400 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
11401 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
11404 .Dl openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
11407 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
11409 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
11410 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
11411 .Dq advanced options
11412 to see the corresponding text field).
11413 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
11414 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
11415 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
11416 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
11417 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
11422 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
11423 (certificate) file has to be created:
11426 .Dl cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
11429 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
11430 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
11431 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
11432 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
11434 is of interest for verification only):
11436 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11437 set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
11438 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
11439 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
11444 From each signed message you send, the recipient can fetch your
11445 certificate and use it to send encrypted mail back to you.
11446 Accordingly if somebody sends you a signed message, you can do the same,
11449 command to check the validity of the certificate.
11452 Variables of interest for S/MIME signing:
11454 .Va smime-ca-file ,
11455 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
11456 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
11457 .Va smime-crl-dir ,
11458 .Va smime-crl-file ,
11460 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
11461 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
11463 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
11466 After it has been verified save the certificate via
11468 and tell \*(UA that it should use it for encryption for further
11469 communication with that somebody:
11471 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11473 set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
11474 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
11478 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
11481 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
11484 You should carefully consider if you prefer to store encrypted messages
11486 If you do, anybody who has access to your mail folders can read them,
11487 but if you do not, you might be unable to read them yourself later if
11488 you happen to lose your private key.
11491 command saves messages in decrypted form, while the
11495 commands leave them encrypted.
11498 Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to message
11499 subjects or other header fields yet.
11500 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
11501 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
11502 When sending signed messages,
11503 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
11507 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
11508 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
11510 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
11511 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
11512 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
11513 declared invalid after they have been issued.
11514 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
11516 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
11517 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
11518 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
11519 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
11520 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
11521 invalidated certificates.
11522 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
11523 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
11526 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
11527 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
11530 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
11533 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
11534 (and no other files) must be created.
11539 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
11540 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
11541 to verify a certificate.
11544 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
11545 .Ss "Handling spam"
11547 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
11548 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
11549 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
11551 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
11552 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
11554 state can be prompted: the
11558 message specifications will address respective messages and their
11560 entries will be used when displaying the
11562 in the header display.
11567 rates the given messages and sets their
11570 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
11571 the header display by including the
11581 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
11582 the given messages as
11586 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
11588 of messages; it adheres to their current
11590 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
11595 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
11597 message flag, without any interface interaction.
11606 requires a running instance of the
11608 server in order to function, started with the option
11610 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
11612 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11613 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
11614 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
11615 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
11619 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
11621 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11622 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11623 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
11624 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
11626 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11627 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
11628 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
11632 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
11634 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
11637 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11638 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11639 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
11640 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
11641 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
11642 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
11643 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
11644 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
11648 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
11649 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
11650 perform the local spam check last:
11652 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11653 define spamdelhook {
11655 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
11656 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
11657 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
11658 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
11659 move :S +maybe-spam
11662 move :S +maybe-spam
11664 set folder-hook-FOLDER=spamdelhook
11668 See also the documentation for the variables
11669 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
11670 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
11671 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
11674 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
11682 In general it is a good idea to turn on
11688 twice) if something does not work well.
11689 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
11690 problems' solution.
11692 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
11693 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
11695 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
11696 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
11698 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
11699 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
11701 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
11705 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
11708 return the expected value?
11709 Does this local hostname has a domain suffix?
11710 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
11712 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
11715 .\" .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away" {{{
11716 .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away"
11718 When this happens even with
11720 set, then this most likely indicates a problem with the creation of
11721 so-called dotlock files: setting
11722 .Va dotlock-ignore-error
11723 should overcome this situation.
11724 This only avoids symptoms, it does not address the problem, though.
11725 Since the output is cleared away \*(UA has support for
11726 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
11727 and switches to the
11729 which causes the output clearance: by doing
11730 .Ql set termcap='smcup='
11731 this mode can be suppressed, and by setting
11733 (twice) the actual problem should be reported.
11736 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
11737 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
11739 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
11741 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
11742 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
11743 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
11746 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
11747 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
11748 her- and himself with the locally installed
11750 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
11751 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
11752 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
11753 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
11756 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
11757 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
11758 .Dq less secure app
11759 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
11760 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
11765 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
11768 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
11770 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
11772 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
11773 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
11774 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
11778 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
11779 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
11781 It can happen that the terminal library (see
11782 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
11785 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
11786 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
11787 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
11792 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
11795 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
11797 in conjunction with the command line option
11799 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
11800 by keypresses, and use the variable
11802 to make \*(UA aware of them.
11803 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
11804 an example showing the shifted home key:
11806 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11809 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
11814 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
11823 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
11833 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
11842 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
11847 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
11850 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
11851 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
11852 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
11855 command already appeared in First Edition
11859 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
11860 Electronic mail was there from the start.
11861 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
11862 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
11863 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
11864 freeloaders, or whatever.
11865 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
11866 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
11867 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
11873 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
11876 distribution until 1995.
11877 Mail has then seen further development in open source
11879 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
11881 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
11882 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
11883 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
11884 This man page is derived from
11885 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
11886 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
11892 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
11893 .An "Edward Wang" ,
11894 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
11895 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
11896 .An "Gunnar Ritter" ,
11897 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq Mt s-nail-users@lists.sourceforge.net
11899 .Mt s-mailx@sdaoden.eu ) .
11902 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
11905 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
11909 is often problematic: many library functions cannot deal with the
11911 that this software (still) performs.
11914 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
11915 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
11916 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
11921 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
11922 that is capable of message queuing.
11928 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
11929 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
11930 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
11932 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
11933 occasionally (this is may and very).
11937 in the source repository lists future directions.