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>.
6 .\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993
7 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
9 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
10 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
12 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
13 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
14 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
15 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
16 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
17 .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
18 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
19 .\" without specific prior written permission.
21 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
22 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
23 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
24 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
25 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
26 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
27 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
28 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
29 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
30 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
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
854 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
855 can be used to alter default behavior.
856 E.g., messages are sent asynchronously, without supervision, unless the
859 is set, therefore send errors will not be recognizable until then.
864 will automatically startup a text editor when compose mode is entered,
866 allows editing of headers additionally to plain body content, whereas
870 will cause the user to be prompted actively for (blind) carbon-copy
871 recipients, respectively, if the given list is empty.
875 hook variables may be set to
877 d macros to automatically adjust some settings dependent
878 on receiver, sender or subject contexts, and via the
879 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
881 .Va on-compose-splice
882 variables, the latter also to be set to a
884 d macro, increasingly powerful mechanisms to perform automated message
885 adjustments are available.
888 Especially for using public mail provider accounts with the SMTP
890 it is often necessary to set
894 (even finer control via
895 .Va smtp-hostname ) ,
896 which also causes creation of
900 header fields (even if empty) unless
902 is set; saving a copy of sent messages in a
904 mailbox may be desirable \(en as for most mailbox
906 targets the value will undergo
907 .Sx "Filename transformations" .
910 for the purpose of arranging a complete environment of settings that can
911 be switched to with a single command or command line option may be
914 contains example configurations for sending messages via some of the
915 well-known public mail providers and also gives a compact overview on
916 how to setup a secure SSL/TLS environment).
921 sandbox dry-run tests first will prove correctness.
925 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
926 will spread light on the different ways of how to specify user email
927 account credentials, the
929 variable chains, and accessing protocol-specific resources,
932 goes into the details of character encoding and how to use them for
933 representing messages and MIME part contents by specifying them in
935 and reading the section
936 .Sx "The mime.types files"
937 should help to understand how the MIME-type of outgoing attachments are
938 classified, and what can be done for fine-tuning.
939 Over the wire an intermediate, configurable
940 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
941 may be applied to the raw message part data.
944 Message recipients (as specified on the command line or defined in
949 may not only be email addressees but can also be names of mailboxes and
950 even complete shell command pipe specifications.
953 is not set then only network addresses (see
955 for a description of mail addresses) and plain user names (including MTA
956 aliases) may be used, other types will be filtered out, giving a warning
960 can be used to generate standard compliant network addresses.
962 .\" When changing any of the following adjust any RECIPIENTADDRSPEC;
963 .\" grep the latter for the complete picture
967 is set then extended recipient addresses will optionally be accepted:
968 Any name which starts with a vertical bar
970 character specifies a command pipe \(en the command string following the
972 is executed and the message is sent to its standard input;
973 Likewise, any name that starts with the character solidus
975 or the character sequence dot solidus
977 is treated as a file, regardless of the remaining content;
978 likewise a name that solely consists of a hyphen-minus
980 Any other name which contains a commercial at
982 character is treated as a network address;
983 Any other name which starts with a plus sign
985 character specifies a mailbox name;
986 Any other name which contains a solidus
988 character but no exclamation mark
992 character before also specifies a mailbox name;
993 What remains is treated as a network address.
995 .Bd -literal -offset indent
996 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test ./mbox.mbox
997 $ echo bla | \*(uA -Sexpandaddr -s test '|cat >> ./mbox.mbox'
998 $ echo safe | LC_ALL=C \e
999 \*(uA -:/ -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave \e
1000 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,+addr,failinvaddr -s test \e
1005 It is possible to create personal distribution lists via the
1007 command, so that, for instance, the user can send mail to
1009 and have it go to a group of people.
1010 These aliases have nothing in common with the system wide aliases that
1011 may be used by the MTA, which are subject to the
1015 and are often tracked in a file
1021 Personal aliases will be expanded by \*(UA before the message is sent,
1022 and are thus a convenient alternative to specifying each addressee by
1023 itself; they correlate with the active set of
1030 .Dl alias cohorts bill jkf mark kridle@ucbcory ~/mail/cohorts.mbox
1033 To avoid environmental noise scripts should
1035 \*(UA from any configuration files and create a script-local
1036 environment, ideally with the command line options
1038 to disable any configuration file in conjunction with repetitions of
1040 to specify variables:
1042 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1043 $ env LC_ALL=C \*(uA -:/ \e
1044 -Sv15-compat -Ssendwait -Snosave -Sttycharset=utf-8 \e
1045 -Sexpandaddr=fail,-all,failinvaddr \e
1046 -S 'mta=smtps://mylogin@exam.ple:465' -Ssmtp-auth=login \e
1047 -S 'from=scriptreply@exam.ple' \e
1048 -s 'subject' -a attachment_file \e
1049 -. "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>" rec2@exam.ple \e
1054 As shown, scripts can
1056 a locale environment, the above specifies the all-compatible 7-bit clean
1059 but will nonetheless take and send UTF-8 in the message text by using
1061 In interactive mode, which is introduced in the next section, messages
1062 can be sent by calling the
1064 command with a list of recipient addresses \(em the semantics are
1065 completely identical to non-interactive message sending:
1067 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1068 $ \*(uA -d -Squiet -Semptystart
1069 "/var/spool/mail/user": 0 messages
1070 ? mail "Recipient 1 <rec1@exam.ple>", rec2@exam.ple
1071 ? # Will do the right thing (tm)
1072 ? m rec1@exam.ple rec2@exam.ple
1076 .\" .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode" {{{
1077 .Ss "On reading mail, and interactive mode"
1079 When invoked without addressees \*(UA enters interactive mode in which
1081 When used like that the user's system
1085 for an in-depth description of the different mailbox types that exist)
1086 is read in and a one line header of each message therein is displayed.
1087 The visual style of this summary of
1089 can be adjusted through the variable
1091 and the possible sorting criterion via
1097 can be performed with the command
1099 If the initially opened mailbox is empty \*(UA will instead exit
1100 immediately (after displaying a message) unless the variable
1109 will give a listing of all available commands and
1111 will give a summary of some common ones.
1112 If the \*(OPal documentation strings are available one can type
1115 and see the actual expansion of
1117 and what its purpose is, i.e., commands can be abbreviated
1118 (note that POSIX defines some abbreviations, so that the alphabetical
1119 order of commands does not necessarily relate to the abbreviations; it is
1120 possible to define overwrites with the
1123 These commands can also produce a more
1128 Messages are given numbers (starting at 1) which uniquely identify
1129 messages; the current message \(en the
1131 \(en will either be the first new message, or the first unread message,
1132 or the first message of the mailbox; the internal variable
1134 will instead cause usage of the last message for this purpose.
1139 ful of header summaries containing the
1143 will display only the summaries of the given messages, defaulting to the
1147 Message content can be displayed with the command
1154 controls whether and when \*(UA will use the configured
1156 for display instead of directly writing to the user terminal
1158 the sole difference to the command
1160 which will always use the
1164 will instead only show the first
1166 of a message (maybe even compressed if
1171 By default the current message
1173 is displayed, but like with many other commands it is possible to give
1174 a fancy message specification (see
1175 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) ,
1178 will display all unread messages,
1183 will type the messages 1 and 5,
1185 will type the messages 1 through 5, and
1189 will display the last and the next message, respectively.
1192 (a more substantial alias for
1194 will display a header summary of the given message specification list
1195 instead of their content, e.g., the following will search for subjects:
1198 .Dl from "'@Some subject to search for'"
1201 In the default setup all header fields of a message will be
1203 d, but fields can be white- or blacklisted for a variety of
1204 applications by using the command
1206 e.g., to restrict display to a very restricted set:
1207 .Ql Ic \:headerpick Cd \:type retain add Ar \:from to cc subject .
1208 In order to display all header fields of a message regardless of
1209 currently active ignore or retain lists, use the commands
1213 Note that historically the global
1215 not only adjusts the list of displayed headers, but also sets
1219 Dependent upon the configuration a line editor (see the section
1220 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
1221 aims at making user experience with the many
1224 When reading the system
1230 specified a mailbox explicitly prefixed with the special
1232 modifier (propagating the mailbox to a
1234 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ) ,
1235 then messages which have been read will be moved to a
1237 .Sx "secondary mailbox" ,
1240 file, automatically when the mailbox is left, either by changing the
1241 active mailbox or by quitting \*(UA (also see
1242 .Sx "Message states" )
1243 \(en this automatic moving from a system or primary to the secondary
1244 mailbox is not performed when the variable
1249 After examining a message the user can also
1253 to the sender and all recipients or
1255 exclusively to the sender(s).
1256 Messages can also be
1258 ed (shorter alias is
1260 Note that when replying to or forwarding a message recipient addresses
1261 will be stripped from comments and names unless the internal variable
1264 Deletion causes \*(UA to forget about the message;
1265 This is not irreversible, though, one can
1267 the message by giving its number,
1268 or the \*(UA session can be ended by giving the
1273 To end a mail processing session one may either issue
1275 to cause a full program exit, which possibly includes
1276 automatic moving of read messages to
1278 as well as updating the \*(OPal line editor
1282 instead in order to prevent any of these actions.
1285 .\" .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments" {{{
1286 .Ss "HTML mail and MIME attachments"
1288 Messages which are HTML-only get more and more common and of course many
1289 messages come bundled with a bouquet of MIME attachments.
1290 Whereas \*(UA \*(OPally supports a simple HTML-to-text converter to deal
1291 with HTML messages (see
1292 .Sx "The mime.types files" ) ,
1293 it normally cannot deal with any of these itself, but instead programs
1294 need to become registered to deal with specific MIME types or file
1296 These programs may either prepare plain text versions of their input
1297 in order to enable \*(UA to display the content on the terminal,
1298 or display the content themselves, for example in a graphical window.
1301 To install an external handler program for a specific MIME type set an
1303 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
1304 variable; to instead define a handler for a specific file extension set
1307 variable \(en these handlers take precedence.
1308 \*(OPally \*(UA supports mail user agent configuration as defined in
1309 RFC 1524; this mechanism, documented in the section
1310 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
1311 will be queried for display or quote handlers if none of the former two
1312 .\" TODO v15-compat "will be" -> "is"
1313 did; it will be the sole source for handlers of other purpose.
1314 A last source for handlers may be the MIME type definition itself, if
1315 the \*(UA specific type-marker extension was used when defining the type
1318 (Many of the builtin MIME types do so by default.)
1322 .Va mime-counter-evidence
1323 can be set to improve dealing with faulty MIME part declarations as are
1324 often seen in real-life messages.
1325 E.g., to display a HTML message inline (that is, converted to a more
1326 fancy plain text representation than the builtin converter is capable to
1327 produce) with either of the text-mode browsers
1331 teach \*(UA about MathML documents and make it display them as plain
1332 text, and to open PDF attachments in an external PDF viewer,
1333 asynchronously and with some other magic attached:
1335 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1336 if [ "$features" !@ +filter-html-tagsoup ]
1337 #set pipe-text/html='elinks -force-html -dump 1'
1338 set pipe-text/html='lynx -stdin -dump -force_html'
1339 # Display HTML as plain text instead
1340 #set pipe-text/html=@
1342 mimetype '@ application/mathml+xml mathml'
1343 wysh set pipe-application/pdf='@&=@ \e
1344 trap "rm -f \e"${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}\e"" EXIT;\e
1345 trap "trap \e"\e" INT QUIT TERM; exit 1" INT QUIT TERM;\e
1346 mupdf "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}"'
1350 Note: special care must be taken when using such commands as mail
1351 viruses may be distributed by this method: if messages of type
1352 .Ql application/x-sh
1353 or files with the extension
1355 were blindly filtered through the shell, for example, a message sender
1356 could easily execute arbitrary code on the system \*(UA is running on.
1357 For more on MIME, also in respect to sending of messages, see the
1359 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
1360 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
1365 .\" .Ss "Mailing lists" {{{
1368 \*(UA offers some support to ease handling of mailing lists.
1371 promotes all given arguments to known mailing lists, and
1373 sets their subscription attribute, creating them first as necessary.
1378 automatically, but only resets the subscription attribute.)
1379 Using the commands without arguments will show (a subset of) all
1380 currently defined mailing lists.
1385 can be used to mark out messages with configured list addresses
1386 in the header display.
1389 \*(OPally mailing lists may also be specified as (extended) regular
1390 expressions, which allows matching of many addresses with a single
1392 However, all fully qualified list addresses are matched via a fast
1393 dictionary, whereas expressions are placed in (a) list(s) which is
1394 (are) matched sequentially.
1396 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1397 set followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes reply-to-honour=ask-yes
1398 wysh mlist a1@b1.c1 a2@b2.c2 '.*@lists\e.c3$'
1399 mlsubscribe a4@b4.c4 exact@lists.c3
1404 .Va followup-to-honour
1406 .Ql Mail-\:Followup-\:To:
1407 header is honoured when the message is being replied to (via
1413 controls whether this header is created when sending mails; it will be
1414 created automatically for a couple of reasons, too, like when the
1416 .Dq mailing list specific
1421 is used to respond to a message with its
1422 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1426 A difference in between the handling of known and subscribed lists is
1427 that the address of the sender is usually not part of a generated
1428 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
1429 when addressing the latter, whereas it is for the former kind of lists.
1430 Usually because there are exceptions: say, if multiple lists are
1431 addressed and not all of them are subscribed lists.
1433 For convenience \*(UA will, temporarily, automatically add a list
1434 address that is presented in the
1436 header of a message that is being responded to to the list of known
1438 Shall that header have existed \*(UA will instead, dependent on the
1440 .Va reply-to-honour ,
1443 for this purpose in order to accept a list administrators' wish that
1444 is supposed to have been manifested like that (but only if it provides
1445 a single address which resides on the same domain as what is stated in
1449 .\" .Ss "Resource files" {{{
1450 .Ss "Resource files"
1452 Upon startup \*(UA reads in several resource files:
1454 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
1457 System wide initialization file.
1458 Reading of this file can be suppressed, either by using the
1460 (and according argument) or
1462 command line options, or by setting the
1465 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC .
1469 File giving initial commands.
1470 A different file can be chosen by setting the
1474 Reading of this file can be suppressed with the
1476 command line option.
1478 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
1479 Can be used to define an optional startup file to be read after all
1480 other resource files.
1481 It can be used to specify settings that are not understood by other
1483 implementations, for example.
1484 This variable is only honoured when defined in a resource file, e.g.,
1486 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" .
1490 The content of these files is interpreted as follows:
1493 .Bl -bullet -compact
1495 A lines' leading whitespace is removed.
1497 Empty lines are ignored.
1499 Any other line is interpreted as a command.
1500 It may be spread over multiple input lines if the newline character is
1502 by placing a reverse solidus character
1504 as the last character of the line; whereas any leading whitespace of
1505 follow lines is ignored, trailing whitespace before a escaped newline
1506 remains in the input.
1508 If the line (content) starts with the number sign
1510 then it is a comment-command \(en a real command! \(en and also ignored.
1511 This command is the only form of comment that is understood.
1515 Unless \*(UA is about to enter interactive mode syntax errors that occur
1516 while loading these files are treated as errors and cause program exit.
1517 More files with syntactically equal content can be
1519 The following, saved in a file, would be an examplary content:
1521 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1522 # This line is a comment command. And y\e
1523 es, it is really continued here.
1530 .\" .Ss "Character sets" {{{
1531 .Ss "Character sets"
1533 \*(OP \*(UA detects the character set of the terminal by using
1534 mechanisms that are controlled by the
1539 should give an overview); the \*(UA internal variable
1541 will be set to the detected terminal character set accordingly
1542 and will thus show up in the output of the commands
1548 However, a user supplied
1550 value is not overwritten by this detection mechanism: this
1552 must be used if the detection does not work properly,
1553 and it may be used to adjust the name of the locale character set.
1554 E.g., on BSD systems one may use a locale with the character set
1555 ISO8859-1, which is not a valid name for this character set; to be on
1556 the safe side, one may set
1558 to the correct name, which is ISO-8859-1.
1561 Note that changing the value does not mean much beside that,
1562 since several aspects of the real character set are implied by the
1563 locale environment of the system,
1564 and that stays unaffected by the content of an overwritten
1567 (This is mostly an issue when interactively using \*(UA, though.
1568 It is actually possible to send mail in a completely
1570 locale environment, an option that \*(UA's test-suite uses excessively.)
1573 If no character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into
1576 does not include the term
1580 will be the only supported character set,
1581 it is simply assumed that it can be used to exchange 8-bit messages
1582 (over the wire an intermediate
1583 .Pf content-transfer-\: Va encoding
1585 and the rest of this section does not apply;
1586 it may however still be necessary to explicitly set it if automatic
1587 detection fails, since in that case it defaults to the mentioned
1588 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.1:"Character sets", ./nail.h:CHARSET_*!)
1592 When reading messages, their text is converted into
1594 as necessary in order to display them on the users terminal.
1595 Unprintable characters and invalid byte sequences are detected
1596 and replaced by proper substitution characters.
1597 Character set mappings for source character sets can be established with
1600 which may be handy to work around faulty character set catalogues (e.g.,
1601 to add a missing LATIN1 to ISO-8859-1 mapping), or to enforce treatment
1602 of one character set as another one (e.g., to interpret LATIN1 as CP1252).
1604 .Va charset-unknown-8bit
1605 to deal with another hairy aspect of message interpretation.
1608 When sending messages all their parts and attachments are classified.
1609 Whereas no character set conversion is performed on those parts which
1610 appear to be binary data,
1611 the character set being used must be declared within the MIME header of
1612 an outgoing text part if it contains characters that do not conform to
1613 the set of characters that are allowed by the email standards.
1614 Permissible values for character sets can be declared using the
1618 which defines a catch-all last-resort fallback character set that is
1619 implicitly appended to the list of character sets in
1623 When replying to a message and the variable
1624 .Va reply-in-same-charset
1625 is set then the character set of the message being replied to is tried
1626 first (after mapping via
1627 .Ic charsetalias ) .
1628 And it is also possible to make \*(UA work even more closely related to
1629 the current locale setting automatically by using the variable
1630 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset ,
1631 please see there for more information.
1634 All the specified character sets are tried in order unless the
1635 conversion of the part or attachment succeeds.
1636 If none of the tried (8-bit) character sets is capable to represent the
1637 content of the part or attachment,
1638 then the message will not be sent and its text will optionally be
1642 In general, if the message
1643 .Dq Cannot convert from a to b
1644 appears, either some characters are not appropriate for the currently
1645 selected (terminal) character set,
1646 or the needed conversion is not supported by the system.
1647 In the first case, it is necessary to set an appropriate
1649 locale and/or the variable
1653 The best results are usually achieved when \*(UA is run in a UTF-8
1654 locale on a UTF-8 capable terminal, in which case the full Unicode
1655 spectrum of characters is available.
1656 In this setup characters from various countries can be displayed,
1657 while it is still possible to use more simple character sets for sending
1658 to retain maximum compatibility with older mail clients.
1661 On the other hand the POSIX standard defines a locale-independent 7-bit
1662 .Dq portable character set
1663 that should be used when overall portability is an issue, the even more
1664 restricted subset named
1665 .Dq portable filename character set
1666 consisting of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period
1674 .\" .Ss "Message states" {{{
1675 .Ss "Message states"
1677 \*(UA differentiates in between several different message states;
1678 the current state will be reflected in header summary displays if
1680 is configured to do so (via the internal variable
1682 and messages can also be selected and be acted upon depending on their
1684 .Sx "Specifying messages" ) .
1685 When operating on the system
1689 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
1690 special actions, like the automatic moving of messages to the
1692 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
1694 may be applied when the mailbox is left (also implicitly via
1695 a successful exit of \*(UA, but not if the special command
1697 is used) \(en however, because this may be irritating to users which
1700 mail-user-agents, the default global
1706 variables in order to suppress this behaviour.
1708 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ql new"
1710 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state.
1711 Such messages are retained even in the
1713 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
1716 Message has neither been viewed nor moved to any other state, but the
1717 message was present already when the mailbox has been opened last:
1718 Such messages are retained even in the
1720 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
1723 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1742 will always try to automatically
1748 logical message, and may thus mark multiple messages as read, the
1750 command will do so if the internal variable
1755 command is used, messages that are in a
1757 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
1760 state when the mailbox is left will be saved in
1762 unless the internal variable
1767 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1773 can be used to access such messages.
1776 The message has been processed by a
1778 command and it will be retained in its current location.
1781 The message has been processed by one of the following commands:
1787 command is used, messages that are in a
1789 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
1792 state when the mailbox is left will be deleted; they will be saved in
1794 when the internal variable
1800 In addition to these message states, flags which otherwise have no
1801 technical meaning in the mail system except allowing special ways of
1802 addressing them when
1803 .Sx "Specifying messages"
1804 can be set on messages.
1805 These flags are saved with messages and are thus persistent, and are
1806 portable between a set of widely used MUAs.
1808 .Bl -hang -width ".It Ic answered"
1810 Mark messages as having been answered.
1812 Mark messages as being a draft.
1814 Mark messages which need special attention.
1818 .\" .Ss "Specifying messages" {{{
1819 .Ss "Specifying messages"
1826 can be given a list of message numbers as arguments to apply to a number
1827 of messages at once.
1830 deletes messages 1 and 2,
1833 will delete the messages 1 through 5.
1834 In sorted or threaded mode (see the
1838 will delete the messages that are located between (and including)
1839 messages 1 through 5 in the sorted/threaded order, as shown in the
1842 The following special message names exist:
1845 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ar BaNg"
1847 The current message, the so-called
1851 The message that was previously the current message.
1854 The parent message of the current message,
1855 that is the message with the Message-ID given in the
1857 field or the last entry of the
1859 field of the current message.
1862 The next previous undeleted message,
1863 or the next previous deleted message for the
1866 In sorted/threaded mode,
1867 the next previous such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1870 The next undeleted message,
1871 or the next deleted message for the
1874 In sorted/threaded mode,
1875 the next such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1878 The first undeleted message,
1879 or the first deleted message for the
1882 In sorted/threaded mode,
1883 the first such message in the sorted/threaded order.
1887 In sorted/threaded mode,
1888 the last message in the sorted/threaded order.
1892 selects the message addressed with
1896 is any other message specification,
1897 and all messages from the thread that begins at it.
1898 Otherwise it is identical to
1903 the thread beginning with the current message is selected.
1908 All messages that were included in the
1909 .Sx "Message list arguments"
1910 of the previous command.
1913 An inclusive range of message numbers.
1914 Selectors that may also be used as endpoints include any of
1919 .Dq any substring matches
1922 header, which will match addresses (too) even if
1924 is set (and POSIX says
1925 .Dq any address as shown in a header summary shall be matchable in this form ) ;
1928 variable is set, only the local part of the address is evaluated
1929 for the comparison, not ignoring case, and the setting of
1931 is completely ignored.
1932 For finer control and match boundaries use the
1936 .It Ar / Ns Ar string
1937 All messages that contain
1939 in the subject field (case ignored).
1946 the string from the previous specification of that type is used again.
1948 .It Xo Op Ar @ Ns Ar name-list Ns
1951 All messages that contain the given case-insensitive search
1953 ession; if the \*(OPal regular expression (see
1955 support is available
1957 will be interpreted as (an extended) one if any of the
1959 (extended) regular expression characters is seen: in this case this
1960 should match strings correctly which are in the locale
1964 .Ar @ Ns Ar name-list
1965 part is missing, the search is restricted to the subject field body,
1968 specifies a comma-separated list of header fields to search, as in
1970 .Dl '@to,from,cc@Someone i ought to know'
1972 In order to search for a string that includes a
1974 (commercial at) character the
1976 is effectively non-optional, but may be given as the empty string.
1977 Some special header fields may be abbreviated:
1991 respectively and case-insensitively.
1996 can be used to search in (all of) the header(s) of the message, and the
2005 can be used to perform full text searches \(en whereas the former
2006 searches only the body, the latter also searches the message header.
2008 This message specification performs full text comparison, but even with
2009 regular expression support it is almost impossible to write a search
2010 expression that savely matches only a specific address domain.
2011 To request that the content of the header is treated as a list of
2012 addresses, and to strip those down to the plain email address which the
2013 search expression is to be matched against, prefix the header name
2014 (abbreviation) with a tilde
2017 .Dl @~f@@a\e.safe\e.domain\e.match$
2020 All messages of state
2024 is one or multiple of the following colon modifiers:
2026 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar :M"
2031 Old messages (any not in state
2053 messages (cf. the variable
2054 .Va markanswered ) .
2059 \*(OP Messages classified as spam (see
2060 .Sx "Handling spam" . )
2062 \*(OP Messages with unsure spam classification.
2068 \*(OP IMAP-style SEARCH expressions may also be used.
2069 This addressing mode is available with all types of folders;
2070 \*(UA will perform the search locally as necessary.
2071 Strings must be enclosed by double quotes
2073 in their entirety if they contain white space or parentheses;
2074 within the quotes, only reverse solidus
2076 is recognized as an escape character.
2077 All string searches are case-insensitive.
2078 When the description indicates that the
2080 representation of an address field is used,
2081 this means that the search string is checked against both a list
2084 .Bd -literal -offset indent
2085 (\*qname\*q \*qsource\*q \*qlocal-part\*q \*qdomain-part\*q)
2090 and the addresses without real names from the respective header field.
2091 These search expressions can be nested using parentheses, see below for
2095 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
2096 .It Ar ( criterion )
2097 All messages that satisfy the given
2099 .It Ar ( criterion1 criterion2 ... criterionN )
2100 All messages that satisfy all of the given criteria.
2102 .It Ar ( or criterion1 criterion2 )
2103 All messages that satisfy either
2108 To connect more than two criteria using
2110 specifications have to be nested using additional parentheses,
2112 .Ql (or a (or b c)) ,
2116 .Ql ((a or b) and c) .
2119 operation of independent criteria on the lowest nesting level,
2120 it is possible to achieve similar effects by using three separate
2124 .It Ar ( not criterion )
2125 All messages that do not satisfy
2127 .It Ar ( bcc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2128 All messages that contain
2130 in the envelope representation of the
2133 .It Ar ( cc \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2134 All messages that contain
2136 in the envelope representation of the
2139 .It Ar ( from \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2140 All messages that contain
2142 in the envelope representation of the
2145 .It Ar ( subject \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2146 All messages that contain
2151 .It Ar ( to \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2152 All messages that contain
2154 in the envelope representation of the
2157 .It Ar ( header name \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2158 All messages that contain
2163 .It Ar ( body \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2164 All messages that contain
2167 .It Ar ( text \*q Ns Ar string Ns Ar \*q )
2168 All messages that contain
2170 in their header or body.
2171 .It Ar ( larger size )
2172 All messages that are larger than
2175 .It Ar ( smaller size )
2176 All messages that are smaller than
2180 .It Ar ( before date )
2181 All messages that were received before
2183 which must be in the form
2187 denotes the day of the month as one or two digits,
2189 is the name of the month \(en one of
2190 .Ql Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ,
2193 is the year as four digits, e.g.,
2197 All messages that were received on the specified date.
2198 .It Ar ( since date )
2199 All messages that were received since the specified date.
2200 .It Ar ( sentbefore date )
2201 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2202 .It Ar ( senton date )
2203 All messages that were sent on the specified date.
2204 .It Ar ( sentsince date )
2205 All messages that were sent since the specified date.
2207 The same criterion as for the previous search.
2208 This specification cannot be used as part of another criterion.
2209 If the previous command line contained more than one independent
2210 criterion then the last of those criteria is used.
2214 .\" .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup" {{{
2215 .Ss "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
2217 \*(IN For accessing protocol-specific resources usage of Uniform
2218 Resource Locators (URL, RFC 1738) has become omnipresent.
2219 \*(UA expects and understands URLs in the following form;
2222 denote optional parts, optional either because there also exist other
2223 ways to define the information in question or because support of the
2224 part is protocol-specific (e.g.,
2226 is used by the IMAP protocol but not by POP3);
2231 are specified they must be given in URL percent encoded form (RFC 3986;
2237 .Dl PROTOCOL://[USER[:PASSWORD]@]server[:port][/path]
2240 Note that these \*(UA URLs most often do not conform to any real
2241 standard, but instead represent a normalized variant of RFC 1738 \(en
2242 they are not used in data exchange but only meant as a compact,
2243 easy-to-use way of defining and representing information in
2244 a well-known notation.
2247 Many internal variables of \*(UA exist in multiple versions, called
2248 variable chains for the rest of this document: the plain
2253 .Ql variable-USER@HOST .
2260 had been specified in the respective URL, otherwise it refers to the plain
2266 that had been found when doing the user chain lookup as is described
2269 will never be in URL percent encoded form, whether it came from an URL
2270 or not; i.e., variable chain name extensions of
2271 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2272 must not be URL percent encoded.
2275 For example, whether an hypothetical URL
2276 .Ql smtp://hey%3Ayou@our.house
2277 had been given that includes a user, or whether the URL was
2278 .Ql smtp://our.house
2279 and the user had been found differently, to lookup the variable chain
2280 .Va smtp-use-starttls
2281 \*(UA first looks for whether
2282 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:hey:you@our.house
2283 is defined, then whether
2284 .Ql smtp-\:use-\:starttls-\:our.house
2285 exists before finally ending up looking at the plain variable itself.
2288 \*(UA obeys the following logic scheme when dealing with the
2289 necessary credential information of an account:
2295 has been given in the URL the variables
2299 are looked up; if no such variable(s) can be found then \*(UA will,
2300 when enforced by the \*(OPal variables
2301 .Va netrc-lookup-HOST
2308 specific entry which provides a
2310 name: this lookup will only succeed if unambiguous (one possible matching
2313 It is possible to load encrypted
2318 If there is still no
2320 then \*(UA will fall back to the user who is supposed to run \*(UA,
2321 the identity of which has been fixated during \*(UA startup and is
2322 known to be a valid user on the current host.
2325 Authentication: unless otherwise noted this will lookup the
2326 .Va PROTOCOL-auth-USER@HOST , PROTOCOL-auth-HOST , PROTOCOL-auth
2327 variable chain, falling back to a protocol-specific default should this
2333 has been given in the URL, then if the
2335 has been found through the \*(OPal
2337 that may have already provided the password, too.
2338 Otherwise the variable chain
2339 .Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
2340 is looked up and used if existent.
2342 Afterwards the complete \*(OPal variable chain
2343 .Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
2347 cache is searched for a password only (multiple user accounts for
2348 a single machine may exist as well as a fallback entry without user
2349 but with a password).
2351 If at that point there is still no password available, but the
2352 (protocols') chosen authentication type requires a password, then in
2353 interactive mode the user will be prompted on the terminal.
2358 S/MIME verification works relative to the values found in the
2362 header field(s), which means that the values of
2363 .Va smime-sign , smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
2365 .Va smime-sign-message-digest
2366 will not be looked up using the
2370 chains from above but instead use the corresponding values from the
2371 message that is being worked on.
2372 In unusual cases multiple and different
2376 combinations may therefore be involved \(en on the other hand those
2377 unusual cases become possible.
2378 The usual case is as short as:
2381 .Dl set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@HOST smtp-use-starttls \e
2382 .Dl \ \ \ \ smime-sign smime-sign-cert=+smime.pair
2387 contains complete example configurations.
2390 .\" .Ss "On terminal control and line editor" {{{
2391 .Ss "On terminal control and line editor"
2393 \*(OP Terminal control will be realized through one of the standard
2395 libraries, either the
2397 or, alternatively, the
2399 both of which will be initialized to work with the environment variable
2401 Terminal control will enhance or enable interactive usage aspects, e.g.,
2402 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
2403 and extend behaviour of the Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE), which may learn the
2404 byte-sequences of keys like the cursor and function keys, and which will
2405 automatically enter the so-called
2407 alternative screen shall the terminal support it.
2408 The internal variable
2410 can be used to overwrite settings or to learn (correct(ed)) keycodes.
2411 Actual interaction with the chosen library can be disabled completely by
2412 setting the internal variable
2413 .Va termcap-disable ;
2415 will be queried regardless, even if the \*(OPal support for the
2416 libraries has not been enabled at configuration time.
2419 \*(OP The builtin \*(UA Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE) should work in all
2420 environments which comply to the ISO C standard
2422 and will support wide glyphs if possible (the necessary functionality
2423 had been removed from ISO C, but was included in
2425 Prevent usage of a line editor in interactive mode by setting the
2427 .Va line-editor-disable .
2428 Especially if the \*(OPal terminal control support is missing setting
2429 entries in the internal variable
2431 will help shall the MLE misbehave, see there for more.
2432 The MLE can support a little bit of
2438 feature is available then input from line editor prompts will be saved
2439 in a history list that can be searched in and be expanded from.
2440 Such saving can be prevented by prefixing input with any amount of
2442 Aspects of history, like allowed content and maximum size, as well as
2443 whether history shall be saved persistently, can be configured with the
2447 .Va history-gabby-persist
2452 The MLE supports a set of editing and control commands.
2453 By default (as) many (as possible) of these will be assigned to a set of
2454 single-letter control codes, which should work on any terminal (and can
2455 be generated by holding the
2457 key while pressing the key of desire, e.g.,
2461 command is available then the MLE commands can also be accessed freely
2462 by assigning the command name, which is shown in parenthesis in the list
2463 below, to any desired key-sequence, and the MLE will instead and also use
2465 to establish its builtin key bindings
2466 (more of them if the \*(OPal terminal control is available),
2467 an action which can then be suppressed completely by setting
2468 .Va line-editor-no-defaults .
2469 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2470 notation is used in the following;
2471 combinations not mentioned either cause job control signals or do not
2472 generate a (unique) keycode:
2476 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql Ba"
2478 Go to the start of the line
2480 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-home ) .
2483 Move the cursor backward one character
2485 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-bwd ) .
2488 Forward delete the character under the cursor;
2489 quits \*(UA if used on the empty line unless the internal variable
2493 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-fwd ) .
2496 Go to the end of the line
2498 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-end ) .
2501 Move the cursor forward one character
2503 .Pf ( Cd mle-go-fwd ) .
2506 Cancel current operation, full reset.
2507 If there is an active history search or tabulator expansion then this
2508 command will first reset that, reverting to the former line content;
2509 thus a second reset is needed for a full reset in this case
2511 .Pf ( Cd mle-reset ) .
2514 Backspace: backward delete one character
2516 .Pf ( Cd mle-del-bwd ) .
2520 Horizontal tabulator:
2521 try to expand the word before the cursor, supporting the usual
2522 .Sx "Filename transformations"
2524 .Pf ( Cd mle-complete ) .
2526 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
2530 commit the current line
2532 .Pf ( Cd mle-commit ) .
2535 Cut all characters from the cursor to the end of the line
2537 .Pf ( Cd mle-snarf-end ) .
2542 .Pf ( Cd mle-repaint ) .
2545 \*(OP Go to the next history entry
2547 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-fwd ) .
2550 (\*(OPally context-dependent) Invokes the command
2554 \*(OP Go to the previous history entry
2556 .Pf ( Cd mle-hist-bwd ) .
2559 Toggle roundtrip mode shell quotes, where produced,
2562 .Pf ( Cd mle-quote-rndtrip ) .
2563 This setting is temporary, and will be forgotten once the command line
2564 is committed; also see
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; digits may not be used as first, hyphen-minus
2828 may not be used as last characters.
2829 In addition the name may either not be one of the known
2830 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
2831 or must otherwise refer to a writable (non-boolean) value variable.
2832 It is a hard error that is tracked in
2834 if any of these tests fail.
2835 The actual put operation may fail nonetheless, e.g., if the variable
2836 expects a number argument only a number will be accepted.
2837 Some commands may report this as a hard failure in
2839 but most will use the soft exit status
2841 to indicate these failures.
2844 Last, but not least, the modifier
2847 can be used for some old and established commands to choose the new
2848 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2849 rules over the traditional
2850 .Sx "Old-style argument quoting" .
2854 .\" .Ss "Message list arguments" {{{
2855 .Ss "Message list arguments"
2857 Some commands expect arguments that represent messages (actually
2858 their symbolic message numbers), as has been documented above under
2859 .Sx "Specifying messages"
2861 If no explicit message list has been specified, the next message
2862 forward that satisfies the command's requirements will be used,
2863 and if there are no messages forward of the current message,
2864 the search proceeds backwards;
2865 if there are no good messages at all to be found, an error message is
2866 shown and the command is aborted.
2869 .\" .Ss "Old-style argument quoting" {{{
2870 .Ss "Old-style argument quoting"
2872 \*(ID This section documents the old, traditional style of quoting
2873 non-message-list arguments to commands which expect this type of
2874 arguments: whereas still used by the majority of such commands, the new
2875 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
2876 may be available even for those via
2879 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
2880 Nonetheless care must be taken, because only new commands have been
2881 designed with all the capabilities of the new quoting rules in mind,
2882 which can, e.g., generate control characters.
2885 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
2887 An argument can be enclosed between paired double-quotes
2892 any white space, shell word expansion, or reverse solidus characters
2893 (except as described next) within the quotes are treated literally as
2894 part of the argument.
2895 A double-quote will be treated literally within single-quotes and vice
2897 Inside such a quoted string the actually used quote character can be
2898 used nonetheless by escaping it with a reverse solidus
2904 An argument that is not enclosed in quotes, as above, can usually still
2905 contain space characters if those spaces are reverse solidus escaped, as in
2909 A reverse solidus outside of the enclosing quotes is discarded
2910 and the following character is treated literally as part of the argument.
2914 .\" .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting" {{{
2915 .Ss "Shell-style argument quoting"
2917 Commands which don't expect message-list arguments use
2919 ell-style, and therefore POSIX standardized, argument parsing and
2921 \*(ID Most new commands only support these new rules and are flagged
2922 \*(NQ, some elder ones can use them with the command modifier
2924 in the future only this type of argument quoting will remain.
2927 A command line is parsed from left to right and an input token is
2928 completed whenever an unquoted, otherwise ignored, metacharacter is seen.
2929 Metacharacters are vertical bar
2936 .Cm space , tabulator , newline .
2937 The additional metacharacters left and right parenthesis
2939 and less-than and greater-than signs
2943 supports are not used, and are treated as ordinary characters: for one
2944 these characters are a vivid part of email addresses, and it also seems
2945 highly unlikely that their function will become meaningful to \*(UA.
2948 Any unquoted number sign
2950 at the beginning of a new token starts a comment that extends to the end
2951 of the line, and therefore ends argument processing.
2952 An unquoted dollar sign
2954 will cause variable expansion of the given name, which must be a valid
2956 ell-style variable name (see
2958 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
2961 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, brace
2962 enclosing the name is supported (i.e., to subdivide a token).
2965 Whereas the metacharacters
2966 .Cm space , tabulator , newline
2967 only complete an input token, vertical bar
2973 also act as control operators and perform control functions.
2974 For now supported is semicolon
2976 which terminates a single command, therefore sequencing the command line
2977 and making the remainder of the line a subject to reevaluation.
2978 With sequencing, multiple command argument types and quoting rules may
2979 therefore apply to a single line, which can become problematic before
2980 v15: e.g., the first of the following will cause surprising results.
2983 .Dl ? echo one; set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
2984 .Dl ? echo one; wysh set verbose; echo verbose=$verbose.
2987 Quoting is a mechanism that will remove the special meaning of
2988 metacharacters and reserved words, and will prevent expansion.
2989 There are four quoting mechanisms: the escape character, single-quotes,
2990 double-quotes and dollar-single-quotes:
2993 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
2995 The literal value of any character can be preserved by preceding it
2996 with the escape character reverse solidus
3000 Arguments which are enclosed in
3001 .Ql 'single-\:quotes'
3002 retain their literal value.
3003 A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.
3006 The literal value of all characters enclosed in
3007 .Ql \(dqdouble-\:quotes\(dq
3008 is retained, with the exception of dollar sign
3010 which will cause variable expansion, as above, backquote (grave accent)
3012 (which not yet means anything special), reverse solidus
3014 which will escape any of the characters dollar sign
3016 (to prevent variable expansion), backquote (grave accent)
3020 (to prevent ending the quote) and reverse solidus
3022 (to prevent escaping, i.e., to embed a reverse solidus character as-is),
3023 but has no special meaning otherwise.
3026 Arguments enclosed in
3027 .Ql $'dollar-\:single-\:quotes'
3028 extend normal single quotes in that reverse solidus escape sequences are
3029 expanded as follows:
3031 .Bl -tag -compact -width "Ql \eNNN"
3037 an escape character.
3039 an escape character.
3051 emits a reverse solidus character.
3055 double quote (escaping is optional).
3057 eight-bit byte with the octal value
3059 (one to three octal digits), optionally prefixed by an additional
3061 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3063 eight-bit byte with the hexadecimal value
3065 (one or two hexadecimal characters).
3066 A 0 byte will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3068 the Unicode / ISO-10646 character with the hexadecimal codepoint value
3070 (one to eight hexadecimal digits) \(em note that Unicode defines the
3071 maximum codepoint ever to be supported as
3076 This escape is only supported in locales which support Unicode (see
3077 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3078 in other cases the sequence will remain unexpanded unless the given code
3079 point is ASCII compatible or can be represented in the current locale.
3080 The character NUL will suppress further output for the quoted argument.
3084 except it takes only one to four hexadecimal digits.
3086 Emits the non-printable (ASCII and compatible) C0 control codes
3087 0 (NUL) to 31 (US), and 127 (DEL).
3088 Printable representations of ASCII control codes can be created by
3089 mapping them to a different part of the ASCII character set, which is
3090 possible by adding the number 64 for the codes 0 to 31, e.g., 7 (BEL) is
3091 .Ql 7 + 64 = 71 = G .
3092 The real operation is a bitwise logical XOR with 64 (bit 7 set, see
3094 thus also covering code 127 (DEL), which is mapped to 63 (question mark):
3095 .Ql ? vexpr ^ 127 64 .
3097 Whereas historically circumflex notation has often been used for
3098 visualization purposes of control codes, e.g.,
3100 the reverse solidus notation has been standardized:
3102 Some control codes also have standardized (ISO 10646, ISO C) aliases,
3103 as shown above (e.g.,
3107 whenever such an alias exists it will be used for display purposes.
3108 The control code NUL
3110 a non-standard extension) ends argument processing without producing
3113 Non-standard extension: expand the given variable name, as above.
3114 Brace enclosing the name is supported.
3116 Not yet supported, just to raise awareness: Non-standard extension.
3123 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3124 echo 'Quotes '${HOME}' and 'tokens" differ!"# no comment
3125 echo Quotes ${HOME} and tokens differ! # comment
3126 echo Don"'"t you worry$'\ex21' The sun shines on us. $'\eu263A'
3130 .\" .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands" {{{
3131 .Ss "Raw data arguments for codec commands"
3133 A special set of commands, which all have the string
3135 in their name, e.g.,
3139 take raw string data as input, which means that the content of the
3140 command input line is passed completely unexpanded and otherwise
3141 unchanged: like this the effect of the actual codec is visible without
3142 any noise of possible shell quoting rules etc., i.e., the user can input
3143 one-to-one the desired or questionable data.
3144 To gain a level of expansion, the entire command line can be
3148 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3149 ? vput shcodec res encode /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3151 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3153 $'/usr/Sch\eu00F6nes Wetter/heute.txt'
3154 ? eval shcodec d $res
3155 /usr/Sch\[:o]nes Wetter/heute.txt
3159 .\" .Ss "Filename transformations" {{{
3160 .Ss "Filename transformations"
3162 Filenames, where expected, and unless documented otherwise, are
3163 subsequently subject to the following filename transformations, in
3166 .Bl -bullet -offset indent
3168 If the given name is a registered
3170 it will be replaced with the expanded shortcut.
3173 The filename is matched against the following patterns or strings:
3175 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ar %user"
3177 (Number sign) is expanded to the previous file.
3179 (Percent sign) is replaced by the invoking
3180 .Mx -ix "primary system mailbox"
3181 user's primary system mailbox, which either is the (itself expandable)
3183 if that is set, the standardized absolute pathname indicated by
3185 if that is set, or a builtin compile-time default otherwise.
3187 Expands to the primary system mailbox of
3189 (and never the value of
3191 regardless of its actual setting).
3193 (Ampersand) is replaced with the invoking users
3194 .Mx -ix "secondary mailbox"
3195 secondary mailbox, the
3202 directory (if that variable is set).
3204 Expands to the same value as
3206 but has special meaning when used with, e.g., the command
3208 the file will be treated as a primary system mailbox by, e.g., the
3212 commands, meaning that messages that have been read in the current
3213 session will be moved to the
3215 mailbox instead of simply being flagged as read.
3219 Meta expansions are applied to the resulting filename, as applicable to
3220 the resulting file access protocol (also see
3221 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
3222 If the fully expanded filename results in multiple pathnames and the
3223 command is expecting only one file, an error results.
3225 For the file-protocol, a leading tilde
3227 character will be replaced by the expansion of
3229 except when followed by a valid user name, in which case the home
3230 directory of the given user is used instead.
3236 will be replaced by the expansion of the variable, if possible;
3237 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
3240 (shell) variables can be accessed through this mechanism, and the usual
3241 escape mechanism has to be applied to prevent interpretation.
3243 In interactive context, in order to allow simple value acceptance (via
3245 arguments will usually be displayed in a properly quoted form, e.g., a file
3246 .Ql diet\e is \ecurd.txt
3248 .Ql 'diet\e is \ecurd.txt' .
3252 .\" .Ss "Commands" {{{
3255 The following commands are available:
3257 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
3262 command which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the
3263 previously executed command if the internal variable
3269 The comment-command causes the entire line to be ignored.
3271 this really is a normal command which' purpose is to discard its
3274 indicating special character, which means that, e.g., trailing comments
3275 on a line are not possible.
3279 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it
3285 Display the preceding message, or the n'th previous message if given
3286 a numeric argument n.
3290 Show the current message number (the
3295 Show a brief summary of commands.
3296 \*(OP Given an argument a synopsis for the command in question is
3297 shown instead; commands can be abbreviated in general and this command
3298 can be used to see the full expansion of an abbreviation including the
3299 synopsis, try, e.g.,
3304 and see how the output changes.
3305 This mode also supports a more
3307 output, which will provide the informations documented for
3318 \*(NQ Interprets the remainder of the word as a macro name and passes
3323 is a shorter synonym for
3324 .Ql call Ar mymacro .
3328 (ac) Creates, selects or lists (an) account(s).
3329 Accounts are special incarnations of
3331 macros and group commands and variable settings which together usually
3332 arrange the environment for the purpose of creating an email account.
3333 Different to normal macros settings which are covered by
3335 \(en here by default enabled! \(en will not be reverted before the
3340 (case-insensitive) always exists, and all but it can be deleted via
3343 Without arguments a listing of all defined accounts is shown.
3344 With one argument the given account is activated: the system
3346 of that account will be activated (as via
3348 a possibly installed
3350 will be run, and the internal variable
3353 The two argument form is identical to defining a macro as via
3355 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3357 set folder=~/mail inbox=+syste.mbox record=+sent.mbox
3358 set from='(My Name) myname@myisp.example'
3359 set mta=smtp://mylogin@smtp.myisp.example
3365 Perform email address codec transformations on raw-data argument, rather
3366 according to email standards (RFC 5322; \*(ID will furtherly improve).
3370 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3371 The return status is tracked via
3373 The first argument must be either
3377 and specifies the operation to perform on the rest of the line.
3378 Decoding will show how a standard-compliant MUA will display the given
3379 argument, which should be a prepared address.
3380 Please be aware that most MUAs have difficulties with the address
3381 standards, and vary wildly when (comments) in parenthesis,
3383 strings, or quoted-pairs, as below, become involved.
3384 \*(ID \*(UA currently does not perform decoding when displaying addresses.
3386 Encoding supports three different modes, lesser automated versions can be
3387 chosen by prefixing one or two plus signs: the standard imposes
3388 a special meaning on some characters, which thus have to be transformed
3389 to so-called quoted-pairs by pairing them with a reverse solidus
3391 in order to remove the special meaning; this might change interpretation
3392 of the entire argument from what has been desired, however!
3393 Specify one plus sign to remark that double quotation marks are not be
3394 turned into quoted-pairs, and two for also leaving any user-specified
3395 reverse solidus alone.
3396 The result will always be valid, if a successful exit status is reported.
3397 \*(ID Addresses need to be specified in between angle brackets
3400 if the construct becomes more difficult, otherwise the current parser
3401 will fail; it is not smart enough to guess right.
3402 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3403 ? addrc enc "Hey, you",<diet@exam.ple>\e out\e there
3404 "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3405 ? addrc d "\e"Hey, you\e", \e\e out\e\e there" <diet@exam.ple>
3406 "Hey, you", \e out\e there <diet@exam.ple>
3411 (a) Aliases are a method of creating personal distribution lists that
3412 map a single alias name to none to multiple real receivers;
3413 these aliases become expanded after message composing is completed; to
3414 delete aliases, use the command
3416 With no arguments the command shows all currently defined aliases.
3417 With one argument, shows the expansion of the given alias.
3418 With more than one argument, creates or appends to the alias name given
3419 as the first argument the remaining arguments.
3420 Alias names are restricted to alphabetic characters, digits, the
3421 underscore, hyphen-minus, the number sign, colon, commercial at and
3422 period, the last character can also be the dollar sign:
3423 .Ql [[:alnum:]_#:@.-]+$? .
3427 (alt) Manage a list of alternate addresses or names of the active user,
3428 members of which will be removed from recipient lists when replying to
3431 variable is not set).
3432 Without arguments the current set of alternates is displayed, otherwise
3433 the set of alternate names is replaced by the given arguments, and the
3436 is updated accordingly.
3440 Takes a message list and marks each message as having been answered.
3441 Messages will be marked answered when being
3443 to automatically if the
3447 .Sx "Message states" .
3452 \*(OP\*(NQ The bind command extends the MLE (see
3453 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3454 with freely configurable key bindings.
3455 With one argument all bindings for the given context are shown,
3456 specifying an asterisk
3458 will show the bindings of all contexts; a more verbose listing will be
3459 produced if either of
3464 With two or more arguments a binding is (re)established:
3465 the first argument is the context to which the binding shall apply,
3466 the second argument is a comma-separated list of the
3468 which form the binding, and any remaining arguments form the expansion.
3469 To indicate that a binding shall not be auto-committed, but that the
3470 expansion shall instead be furtherly editable by the user, a commercial at
3472 (that will be removed) can be placed last in the expansion, from which
3473 leading and trailing whitespace will finally be removed.
3474 Reverse solidus cannot be used as the last character of expansion.
3477 Contexts define when a binding applies, i.e., a binding will not be seen
3478 unless the context for which it is defined for is currently active.
3479 This is not true for the shared binding
3481 which is the foundation for all other bindings and as such always
3482 applies, its bindings, however, only apply secondarily.
3483 The available contexts are the shared
3487 context which is used in all not otherwise documented situations, and
3489 which applies to compose mode only.
3493 which form the binding are specified as a comma-separated list of
3494 byte-sequences, where each list entry corresponds to one key(press).
3495 \*(OPally a list entry may, indicated by a leading colon character
3497 also refer to the name of a terminal capability;
3498 several dozen names will be compiled into \*(UA and may be specified
3501 or, if existing, by their
3503 name, regardless of the actually used terminal control library.
3504 It is however possible to use any capability, as long as the name is
3505 resolvable by the control library or defined in the internal variable
3507 Input sequences are not case-normalized, so that an exact match is
3508 required to update or remove a binding.
3511 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3512 bind base $'\eE',d mle-snarf-word-fwd # Esc(ape)
3513 bind base $'\eE',$'\ec?' mle-snarf-word-bwd # Esc, Delete
3514 bind default $'\ecA',:khome,w 'echo An editable binding@'
3515 bind default a,b,c rm -rf / @ # Another editable binding
3516 bind default :kf1 File %
3517 bind compose :kf1 ~e
3521 Note that the entire comma-separated list is first parsed (over) as a
3522 shell-token with whitespace as the field separator, before being parsed
3523 and expanded for real with comma as the field separator, therefore
3524 whitespace needs to be properly quoted, see
3525 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" .
3526 Using Unicode reverse solidus escape sequences renders a binding
3527 defunctional if the locale does not support Unicode (see
3528 .Sx "Character sets" ) ,
3529 and using terminal capabilities does so if no terminal control support
3530 is (currently) available.
3533 The following terminal capability names are builtin and can be used in
3535 or (if available) the two-letter
3537 notation regardless of the actually used library.
3538 See the respective manual for a list of capabilities.
3541 can be used to show all the capabilities of
3543 or the given terminal type;
3546 flag will also show supported (non-standard) extensions.
3549 .Bl -tag -compact -width kcuuf_or_kcuuf
3550 .It Cd kbs Ns \0or Cd kb
3552 .It Cd kdch1 Ns \0or Cd kD
3554 .It Cd kDC Ns \0or Cd *4
3555 \(em shifted variant.
3556 .It Cd kel Ns \0or Cd kE
3557 Clear to end of line.
3558 .It Cd kext Ns \0or Cd @9
3560 .It Cd kich1 Ns \0or Cd kI
3562 .It Cd kIC Ns \0or Cd #3
3563 \(em shifted variant.
3564 .It Cd khome Ns \0or Cd kh
3566 .It Cd kHOM Ns \0or Cd #2
3567 \(em shifted variant.
3568 .It Cd kend Ns \0or Cd @7
3570 .It Cd knp Ns \0or Cd kN
3572 .It Cd kpp Ns \0or Cd kP
3574 .It Cd kcub1 Ns \0or Cd kl
3575 Left cursor (with more modifiers: see below).
3576 .It Cd kLFT Ns \0or Cd #4
3577 \(em shifted variant.
3578 .It Cd kcuf1 Ns \0or Cd kr
3579 Right cursor (ditto).
3580 .It Cd kRIT Ns \0or Cd %i
3581 \(em shifted variant.
3582 .It Cd kcud1 Ns \0or Cd kd
3583 Down cursor (ditto).
3585 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3586 .It Cd kcuu1 Ns \0or Cd ku
3589 \(em shifted variant (only terminfo).
3590 .It Cd kf0 Ns \0or Cd k0
3592 Add one for each function key up to
3597 .It Cd kf10 Ns \0or Cd k;
3599 .It Cd kf11 Ns \0or Cd F1
3601 Add one for each function key up to
3609 Some terminals support key-modifier combination extensions, e.g.,
3611 For example, the delete key,
3613 in its shifted variant, the name is mutated to
3615 then a number is appended for the states
3627 .Ql Shift+Alt+Control
3629 The same for the left cursor key,
3631 .Cd KLFT , KLFT3 , KLFT4 , KLFT5 , KLFT6 , KLFT7 , KLFT8 .
3634 Key bindings can be removed with the command
3636 It is advisable to use an initial escape or other control character (e.g.,
3638 for bindings which describe user key combinations (as opposed to purely
3639 terminal capability based ones), in order to avoid ambiguities whether
3640 input belongs to key sequences or not; it also reduces search time.
3643 may help shall keys and sequences be falsely recognized.
3648 \*(NQ Calls the given macro, which must have been created via
3650 Parameters given to macros are implicitly local to the macro's scope, and
3651 may be accessed via the special parameter syntax that is known from the
3658 Positional parameters may be removed by
3660 ing them off the stack.
3661 Macro execution can be terminated at any time by calling
3663 Numeric and string operations can be performed via
3667 may be helpful to recreate argument lists.
3668 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3670 echo Parameter 1 of ${#} is ${1}, all: ${*} / ${@}
3673 call exmac Hello macro exmac!
3680 if the given macro has been created via
3682 but doesn't fail nor warn if the macro doesn't exist.
3686 (ch) Change the working directory to
3688 or the given argument.
3694 \*(OP Only applicable to S/MIME signed messages.
3695 Takes a message list and a file name and saves the certificates
3696 contained within the message signatures to the named file in both
3697 human-readable and PEM format.
3698 The certificates can later be used to send encrypted messages to the
3699 respective message senders by setting
3700 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
3705 .It Ic charsetalias , uncharsetalias
3706 \*(NQ Manage (character set conversion) character set alias mappings,
3707 as documented in the section
3708 .Sx "Character sets" .
3709 Character set aliases are expanded recursively, but no expansion is
3710 performed on values of the user-settable variables, e.g.,
3712 These are effectively no-operations if character set conversion
3713 is not available (i.e., no
3717 Without arguments the list of all currently defined aliases is shown.
3718 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of character sets and
3719 their desired target alias name, creating new or changing already
3720 existing aliases, as necessary.
3722 The latter deletes all aliases given as arguments, the special argument
3724 will remove all aliases.
3728 (ch) Change the working directory to
3730 or the given argument.
3736 Only applicable to threaded mode.
3737 Takes a message list and makes all replies to these messages invisible
3738 in header summaries, unless they are in state
3744 \*(OP\*(NQ Manage colour mappings of and for a
3745 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3746 The type of colour is given as the (case-insensitive) first argument,
3747 which must be one of
3749 for 256-colour terminals,
3754 for the standard 8-colour ANSI / ISO 6429 color palette and
3758 for monochrome terminals.
3759 Monochrome terminals cannot deal with colours, but only (some) font
3763 Without further arguments the list of all currently defined mappings
3764 for the given colour type is shown (as a special case giving
3768 will show the mappings of all types).
3769 Otherwise the second argument defines the mappable slot, and the third
3770 argument a (comma-separated list of) colour and font attribute
3771 specification(s), and the optional fourth argument can be used to
3772 specify a precondition: if conditioned mappings exist they are tested in
3773 (creation) order unless a (case-insensitive) match has been found, and
3774 the default mapping (if any has been established) will only be chosen as
3776 The types of precondition available depend on the mappable slot (see
3777 .Sx "Coloured display"
3778 for some examples), the following of which exist:
3781 Mappings prefixed with
3783 are used for the \*(OPal builtin Mailx-Line-Editor (MLE, see
3784 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
3785 and do not support preconditions.
3787 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3789 This mapping is used for the position indicator that is visible when
3790 a line cannot be fully displayed on the screen.
3797 Mappings prefixed with
3799 are used in header summaries, and they all understand the preconditions
3801 (the current message) and
3803 for elder messages (only honoured in conjunction with
3804 .Va datefield-markout-older ) .
3806 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3808 This mapping is used for the
3810 that can be created with the
3814 formats of the variable
3817 For the complete header summary line except the
3819 and the thread structure.
3821 For the thread structure which can be created with the
3823 format of the variable
3828 Mappings prefixed with
3830 are used when displaying messages.
3832 .Bl -tag -compact -width view-partinfo
3834 This mapping is used for so-called
3836 lines, which are MBOX file format specific header lines.
3839 A comma-separated list of headers to which the mapping applies may be
3840 given as a precondition; if the \*(OPal regular expression support is
3841 available then if any of the
3843 (extended) regular expression characters is seen the precondition will
3844 be evaluated as (an extended) one.
3846 For the introductional message info line.
3847 .It Ar view-partinfo
3848 For MIME part info lines.
3852 The following (case-insensitive) colour definitions and font attributes
3853 are understood, multiple of which can be specified in a comma-separated
3863 It is possible (and often applicable) to specify multiple font
3864 attributes for a single mapping.
3867 foreground colour attribute:
3877 To specify a 256-color mode a decimal number colour specification in
3878 the range 0 to 255, inclusive, is supported, and interpreted as follows:
3880 .Bl -tag -compact -width "999 - 999"
3882 the standard ISO 6429 colors, as above.
3884 high intensity variants of the standard colors.
3886 216 colors in tuples of 6.
3888 grayscale from black to white in 24 steps.
3890 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3892 fg() { printf "\e033[38;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3893 bg() { printf "\e033[48;5;${1}m($1)"; }
3895 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do fg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3896 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3898 while [ $i -lt 256 ]; do bg $i; i=$(($i + 1)); done
3899 printf "\e033[0m\en"
3903 background colour attribute (see
3905 for possible values).
3909 Mappings may be removed with the command
3911 For a generic overview see the section
3912 .Sx "Coloured display" .
3917 (C) Copy messages to files whose names are derived from the author of
3918 the respective message and do not mark them as being saved;
3919 otherwise identical to
3924 (c) Copy messages to the named file and do not mark them as being saved;
3925 otherwise identical to
3930 Show the name of the current working directory, as reported by
3935 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
3936 The return status is tracked via
3941 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3943 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3947 \*(OP For unencrypted messages this command is identical to
3949 Encrypted messages are first decrypted, if possible, and then copied.
3953 Without arguments the current list of macros, including their content,
3954 is shown, otherwise a macro is defined.
3955 A macro definition is a sequence of commands in the following form:
3956 .Bd -literal -offset indent
3965 A defined macro can be invoked explicitly by using the
3969 commands, or implicitly if a macro hook is triggered, e.g., a
3971 It is possible to localize adjustments, like creation, deletion and
3973 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ,
3976 command; the scope which is localized depends on how (i.e.,
3978 normal macro, folder hook, hook,
3980 switch) the macro is invoked.
3981 Execution of a macro body can be stopped from within by calling
3985 ed macro, given positional parameters can be
3988 Macros can be deleted via
3993 (d) Marks the given message list as
3995 Deleted messages will neither be saved in
3997 nor will they be available for most other commands.
4000 variable is set, automatically
4013 Superseded by the multiplexer
4019 Delete the given messages and automatically
4023 if one exists, regardless of the setting of
4030 up or down by one message when given
4034 argument, respectively.
4038 Takes a message list and marks each given message as a draft.
4040 .Sx "Message states" .
4044 \*(NQ (ec) Echoes arguments to standard output and writes a trailing
4045 newline, whereas the otherwise identical
4048 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
4050 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4051 are applied to the expanded arguments.
4057 except that is echoes to standard error.
4065 but does not write a trailing newline.
4071 but does not write a trailing newline.
4075 (e) Point the text editor (as defined in
4077 at each message from the given list in turn.
4078 Modified contents are discarded unless the
4085 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4086 conditional \(em if the condition of a preceding
4088 was false, check the following condition and execute the following block
4089 if it evaluates true.
4094 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4095 conditional \(em if none of the conditions of the preceding
4099 commands was true, the
4105 (en) Marks the end of an
4106 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4107 conditional execution block.
4112 \*(NQ \*(UA has a strict notion about which variables are
4113 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4114 and which are managed in the program
4116 Since some of the latter are a vivid part of \*(UAs functioning,
4117 however, they are transparently integrated into the normal handling of
4118 internal variables via
4122 To integrate other environment variables of choice into this
4123 transparent handling, and also to export internal variables into the
4124 process environment where they normally are not, a
4126 needs to become established with this command, as in, e.g.,
4129 .Dl environ link PERL5LIB from TZ
4132 Afterwards changing such variables with
4134 will cause automatic updates of the program environment, and therefore
4135 be inherited by newly created child processes.
4136 Sufficient system support provided (it was in BSD as early as 1987, and
4137 is standardized since Y2K) removing such variables with
4139 will remove them also from the program environment, but in any way
4140 the knowledge they ever have been
4143 Note this implies that
4145 may cause loss of links.
4150 will remove an existing link, but leaves the variables as such intact.
4151 Additionally the subcommands
4155 are provided, which work exactly the same as the documented commands
4159 but (additionally) link the variable(s) with the program environment and
4160 thus immediately export them to, or remove them from (if possible),
4161 respectively, the program environment.
4166 \*(OP Since \*(UA uses the console as a user interface it can happen
4167 that messages scroll by too fast to become recognized.
4168 Optionally an error message ring queue is available which stores
4169 duplicates of any error message and notifies the user in interactive
4170 sessions whenever a new error has occurred.
4171 The queue is finite: if its maximum size is reached any new message
4172 replaces the eldest.
4175 can be used to manage this message queue: if given
4177 or no argument the queue will be displayed and cleared,
4179 will only clear all messages from the queue.
4183 \*(NQ Construct a command by concatenating the arguments, separated with
4184 a single space character, and then evaluate the result.
4185 This command passes through the status of the evaluated command.
4188 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4190 # Like this, sh(1)ell-stylish from begin to end: works!
4191 # Result status ends up in $!, then
4192 localopts 1;wysh set verbose;ignerr eval "${@}";return ${?}
4194 ghost xv '\ecall xverbose'
4207 call yyy '~xxx' "b\e$'\et'u ' "
4215 (ex or x) Exit from \*(UA without changing the active mailbox and skip
4216 any saving of messages in
4218 as well as a possibly tracked line editor history file.
4224 but open the mailbox read-only.
4229 (fi) The file command switches to a new mailbox.
4230 Without arguments it shows status information of the current mailbox.
4231 If an argument is given, it will write out changes (such as deletions)
4232 the user has made, open a new mailbox and update the internal variables
4233 .Va mailbox-resolved
4235 .Va mailbox-display .
4236 .Sx "Filename transformations"
4237 will be applied to the
4242 If the name ends with
4247 it is treated as being compressed with
4252 respectively, and transparently handled through an intermediate
4253 (un)compression step (using a temporary file) with the according
4254 facility, sufficient support provided.
4255 Likewise, if the named file does not exist, but a file with one of the
4256 mentioned compression extensions does, then the name is automatically
4257 expanded and the compressed file is used.
4260 Otherwise, if the name ends with an extension for which
4261 .Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION
4263 .Va file-hook-save-EXTENSION
4264 variables are set, then the given hooks will be used to load and save
4266 and \*(UA will work with an intermediate temporary file.
4268 MBOX files (flat file-based mailboxes) are generally locked during file
4269 operations in order to avoid inconsistencies due to concurrent
4271 \*(OPal Mailbox files which \*(UA treats as the system
4276 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
4277 es in general will also be protected by so-called dotlock files, the
4278 traditional way of mail spool file locking: for any file
4282 will be created for the duration of the synchronization \(em
4283 as necessary a privilege-separated dotlock child process will be used
4284 to accommodate for necessary privilege adjustments in order to create
4285 the dotlock file in the same directory
4286 and with the same user and group identities as the file of interest.
4289 \*(UA by default uses tolerant POSIX rules when reading MBOX database
4290 files, but it will detect invalid message boundaries in this mode and
4291 complain (even more with
4293 if any is seen: in this case
4295 can be used to create a valid MBOX database from the invalid input.
4300 refers to a directory with the subdirectories
4305 then it is treated as a folder in
4307 format; \*(ID the variable
4309 can be used to control the format of yet non-existent folders.
4313 .Dl \*(IN protocol://[user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
4314 .Dl \*(OU protocol://[user@]host[:port][/path]
4317 is taken as an Internet mailbox specification.
4318 The \*(OPally supported protocols are
4322 (POP3 with SSL/TLS encrypted transport).
4325 part is valid only for IMAP; there it defaults to
4327 Also see the section
4328 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
4333 contains special characters, in particular
4337 they must be escaped in URL notation \(en the command
4339 can be used to show the necessary conversion.
4344 Takes a message list and marks the messages as flagged for
4345 urgent/special attention.
4347 .Sx "Message states" .
4356 With no arguments, list the names of the folders in the folder directory.
4357 With an existing folder as an argument,
4358 lists the names of folders below the named folder.
4364 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4365 recipient's address (instead of in
4372 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4373 recipient's address (instead of in
4380 but responds to all recipients regardless of the
4385 .It Ic followupsender
4388 but responds to the sender only regardless of the
4404 (f) Takes a list of message specifications and displays a summary of
4405 their message headers, exactly as via
4407 An alias of this command is
4410 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
4416 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the
4417 recipient's address (instead of in
4422 Takes a message and the address of a recipient
4423 and forwards the message to him.
4424 The text of the original message is included in the new one,
4425 with the value of the
4427 variable preceding it.
4428 To filter the included header fields to the desired subset use the
4430 slot of the white- and blacklisting command
4432 Only the first part of a multipart message is included unless
4433 .Va forward-as-attachment ,
4434 and recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
4435 unless the internal variable
4441 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4446 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
4451 Define or list command aliases, so-called ghosts.
4452 A ghost can be used everywhere a normal command can be used, but always
4453 takes precedence: any arguments that are given to the command alias are
4454 joined onto the alias content, and the resulting string forms the
4455 command line that is, in effect, executed.
4456 Command ghosts can be removed with
4458 Without arguments a list of all currently known aliases is shown.
4459 With one argument the expansion of the given alias is shown.
4461 With two or more arguments a command alias is defined or updated: the
4462 first argument is the name under which the remaining command line should
4463 be accessible, the content of which can be just about anything.
4464 A ghost may itself expand to another ghost, but to avoid expansion loops
4465 further expansion will be prevented if a ghost refers to itself or if an
4466 expansion depth limit is reached.
4467 Explicit expansion prevention is available via reverse solidus
4470 .Sx "Command modifiers" .
4471 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4473 \*(uA: `ghost': no such alias: xx
4476 ghost xx "echo hello,"
4486 \*(NQ Multiplexer command to establish white- and blacklisting
4487 selections of header fields for a variety of applications.
4488 Without arguments the set of contexts that have settings is displayed.
4489 When given arguments, the first argument is the context to which the
4490 command applies, one of (case-insensitively)
4492 for display purposes (via, e.g.,
4495 for selecting which headers shall be stored persistently when
4501 ing messages (note that MIME related etc. header fields should not be
4502 ignored in order to not destroy usability of the message in this case),
4504 for stripping down messages when
4506 ing message (has no effect if
4507 .Va forward-as-attachment
4510 for defining user-defined set of fields for the command
4514 The current settings of the given context are displayed if only the
4515 first argument is given.
4516 A second argument denotes the type of restriction that is to be chosen,
4517 it may be (a case-insensitive prefix of)
4521 for white- and blacklisting purposes, respectively.
4522 Establishing a whitelist suppresses inspection of the corresponding
4524 If no further argument is given the current settings of the given type
4528 With four or more arguments the third denotes the action to be applied,
4533 for addition of fields, and
4537 for removal of fields from the given type of the given context.
4538 The fourth, and any following arguments are expected to specify the
4539 fields of desire, or \*(OPally, regular expression matches ought to
4541 The special wildcard field (asterisk,
4543 will establish a (fast) shorthand setting which covers all fields, or
4544 remove all fields in one operation, respectively.
4549 (h) Show the current group of headers, the size of which depends on
4552 and the style of which can be adjusted with the variable
4554 If a message-specification is given the group of headers containing the
4555 first message therein is shown and the message at the top of the screen
4570 the list of history entries;
4573 argument selects and evaluates the respective history entry,
4574 which will become the new history top; a negative number is used as an
4575 offset to the current command, e.g.,
4577 will select the last command, the history top.
4578 The default mode if no arguments are given is
4585 Takes a message list and marks each message therein to be saved in the
4590 Does not override the
4593 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command, because a
4595 command issued after
4597 will display the following message, not the current one.
4602 (i) Part of the nestable
4603 .Ic if Ns / Ns Ic elif Ns / Ns Ic else Ns / Ns Ic endif
4604 conditional execution construct \(em if the given condition is true then
4605 the encapsulated block is executed.
4606 POSIX only supports the (case-insensitive) conditions
4611 end, all remaining conditions are non-portable extensions; note that
4612 falsely specified conditions cause the execution of the entire
4613 conditional construct until the (matching) closing
4615 command to be suppressed.
4616 The syntax of the nestable
4618 conditional execution construct requires that each condition and syntax
4619 element is surrounded by whitespace.
4621 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4630 The (case-insensitive) condition
4632 erminal will evaluate to true if the standard input is a terminal, i.e.,
4633 in interactive sessions.
4634 Another condition can be any boolean value (see the section
4635 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4636 for textual boolean representations) to mark an enwrapped block as
4639 .Dq always execute .
4640 It is possible to check
4641 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
4644 variables for existence or compare their expansion against a user given
4645 value or another variable by using the
4647 .Pf ( Dq variable next )
4648 conditional trigger character;
4649 a variable on the right hand side may be signalled using the same
4651 The variable names may be enclosed in a pair of matching braces.
4654 Integer operators treat the left and right hand side as integral numbers
4655 and compare them arithmetically.
4656 It is an error if any of the operands is not a valid integer, an empty
4657 operand is treated as if it were 0.
4658 Available operators are
4662 (less than or equal to),
4668 (greater than or equal to), and
4673 String operators compare the left and right hand side 8-bit byte-wise,
4674 ignoring case according to the rules of the US-ASCII encoding
4675 (therefore, dependent on the active locale, possibly producing false
4676 results for strings in the locale encoding).
4677 An unset variable is treated as the empty string.
4678 Available operators are
4682 (less than or equal to),
4688 (greater than or equal to),
4692 (is substring of) and
4694 (is not substring of).
4697 When the \*(OPal regular expression support is available, the additional
4703 They treat the right hand side as an extended regular expression that is
4704 matched case-insensitively and according to the active
4706 locale, meaning that strings in the locale encoding should be matched
4710 Conditions can be joined via AND-OR lists (where the AND operator is
4712 and the OR operator is
4714 which have equal precedence and will be evaluated with left
4715 associativity, thus using the same syntax that is known for the
4717 It is also possible to form groups of conditions and lists by enclosing
4718 them in pairs of brackets
4719 .Ql [\ \&.\&.\&.\ ] ,
4720 which may be interlocked within each other, and also be joined via
4724 The results of individual conditions and entire groups may be modified
4725 via unary operators: the unary operator
4727 will reverse the result.
4729 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4733 if [ "$ttycharset" == UTF-8 ] || [ "$ttycharset" == UTF8 ]
4734 echo *ttycharset* is set to UTF-8, case-insensitively
4737 if [ "${t1}" == "${t2}" ]
4738 echo These two variables are equal
4740 # This is a string test, -ge was added for v14.9.0
4741 if [ "$version-major" >= 15 ]
4742 echo Running a new version..
4743 if [ "$features" =@ +regex ]
4744 if [ "$TERM" =~ "^xterm\&.*" ]
4745 echo ..in an X terminal
4748 if [ [ true ] && [ [ "${debug}" != '' ] || \e
4749 [ "$verbose" != '' ] ] ]
4752 if true && [ "$debug" != '' ] || [ "${verbose}" != '' ]
4753 echo Left associativity, as is known from the shell
4755 if ! ! true && ! [ ! "$debug" && ! "$verbose" ]
4756 echo Unary operator support
4766 Superseded by the multiplexer
4771 Shows the names of all available commands, alphabetically sorted.
4772 If given any non-whitespace argument the list will be shown in the order
4773 in which command prefixes are searched.
4774 In conjunction with a set variable
4776 additional information will be provided for each command: the argument
4777 type will be indicated, the \*(OPal documentation string will be shown,
4778 and the set of command flags will show up:
4780 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql BaNg"
4781 .It Ql "vput modifier"
4782 command supports the command modifier
4784 .It Ql "status in *!*"
4785 the soft exit status is tracked in
4788 commands needs an active mailbox, a
4790 .It Ql "ok: batch or interactive"
4791 command may only be used in interactive or
4794 .It Ql "ok: send mode"
4795 command can be used in send mode.
4796 .It Ql "not ok: compose mode"
4797 command is not available when in compose-mode.
4798 .It Ql "not ok: during startup"
4799 command cannot be used during program startup, e.g., while loading
4800 .Sx "Resource files" .
4801 .It Ql "ok: in subprocess"
4802 command is allowed to be used when running in a subprocess instance,
4803 e.g., from within a macro that is called via
4804 .Va on-compose-splice .
4809 This command can be used to localize changes to variables, meaning that
4810 their state will be reverted to the former one once the covered scope
4812 It can only be used inside of macro definition blocks introduced by
4816 and is interpreted as a boolean (string, see
4817 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES" ) ;
4820 of an account is left once it is switched off again.
4821 .Bd -literal -offset indent
4822 define temporary_settings {
4823 set possibly_global_option1
4828 set possibly_global_option2
4837 enables change localization and calls
4839 which explicitly resets localization, then any value changes within
4841 will still be reverted by
4843 \*(ID Once the outermost level, the one which enabled localization
4844 first, is left, but no earlier, all adjustments will be unrolled.
4845 \*(ID Likewise worth knowing, if in this example
4847 changes to a different
4849 which sets some variables that are yet covered by localizations, their
4850 scope will be extended, and in fact leaving the
4852 will (thus) restore settings in (likely) global scope which actually
4853 were defined in a local, private context.
4857 Reply to messages that come in via known
4860 .Pf ( Ic mlsubscribe )
4861 mailing lists, or pretend to do so (see
4862 .Sx "Mailing lists" ) :
4865 functionality this will actively resort and even remove message
4866 recipients in order to generate a message that is supposed to be sent to
4868 For example it will also implicitly generate a
4869 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
4870 header if that seems useful, regardless of the setting of the variable
4877 but saves the message in a file named after the local part of the first
4878 recipient's address (instead of in
4883 (m) Takes a (list of) recipient address(es) as (an) argument(s),
4884 or asks on standard input if none were given;
4885 then collects the remaining mail content and sends it out.
4889 (mb) The given message list is to be sent to
4891 when \*(UA is quit; this is the default action unless the variable
4894 \*(ID This command can only be used in a
4896 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
4900 Without any arguments the content of the MIME type cache will displayed.
4901 Otherwise each argument defines a complete MIME type specification of
4902 a type that shall be added (prepended) to the cache.
4903 In any event MIME type sources are loaded first as necessary \(en
4904 .Va mimetypes-load-control
4905 can be used to fine-tune which sources are actually loaded.
4906 Refer to the section on
4907 .Sx "The mime.types files"
4908 for more on MIME type specifications and this topic in general.
4909 MIME type unregistration and cache resets can be triggered with
4914 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists
4915 (and their attributes, if any) is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4916 produced if either of
4921 Otherwise all given arguments (which need not be quoted except for
4922 whitespace) will be added and henceforth be recognized as mailing lists.
4923 Mailing lists may be removed via the command
4926 If the \*(OPal regular expression support is available then mailing
4927 lists may also be specified as (extended) regular expressions (see
4933 Without arguments the list of all currently defined mailing lists which
4934 have a subscription attribute is shown; a more verbose listing will be
4935 produced if either of
4940 Otherwise this attribute will be set for all given mailing lists,
4941 newly creating them as necessary (as via
4943 Subscription attributes may be removed via the command
4952 but moves the messages to a file named after the local part of the
4953 sender address of the first message (instead of in
4960 but marks the messages for deletion if they were transferred
4967 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
4969 selection, and all MIME parts.
4977 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
4978 standard output is a terminal.
4984 \*(OP When used without arguments or if
4986 has been given the content of the
4988 cache is shown, loading it first as necessary.
4991 then the cache will only be initialized and
4993 will remove its contents.
4994 Note that \*(UA will try to load the file only once, use
4995 .Ql Ic \&\&netrc Ns \:\0\:clear
4996 to unlock further attempts.
5001 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ;
5003 .Sx "The .netrc file"
5004 documents the file format in detail.
5008 Checks for new mail in the current folder without committing any changes
5010 If new mail is present, a message is shown.
5014 the headers of each new message are also shown.
5015 This command is not available for all mailbox types.
5023 Goes to the next message in sequence and types it.
5024 With an argument list, types the next matching message.
5038 If the current folder is accessed via a network connection, a
5040 command is sent, otherwise no operation is performed.
5046 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5048 selection, and all MIME parts.
5056 on the given messages, even in non-interactive mode and as long as the
5057 standard output is a terminal.
5065 but also pipes header fields which would not pass the
5067 selection, and all parts of MIME
5068 .Ql multipart/alternative
5073 (pi) Takes a message list and a shell command
5074 and pipes the messages through the command.
5075 Without an argument the current message is piped through the command
5082 every message is followed by a formfeed character.
5103 (q) Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved messages in
5106 preserving all messages marked with
5110 or never referenced in the system
5112 and removing all other messages from the
5114 .Sx "primary system mailbox" .
5115 If new mail has arrived during the session,
5117 .Dq You have new mail
5119 If given while editing a mailbox file with the command line option
5121 then the edit file is rewritten.
5122 A return to the shell is effected,
5123 unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
5124 in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
5128 \*(NQ Read a line from standard input, and assign the splitted and
5129 trimmed line data to the given variables.
5130 The variable names are checked by the same rules as documented for
5132 If there are more fields than variables, assign successive fields to the
5133 last given variable.
5134 If there are less fields than variables, assign the empty string to the
5136 The return status is tracked via
5138 even though variable names are checked errors may still happen if it is
5139 tried to set, e.g., strings to variables which expect number settings;
5140 it thus only happens if names are used which have special meaning to \*(UA.
5141 \*(ID This command will likely be extended towards more
5143 compatibility: for now splitting always occurs at whitespace, reverse
5144 solidus newline escaping is always supported, and the \*(OPal line
5145 editing features are always available when on an interactive terminal.
5146 .Bd -literal -offset indent
5149 ? echo "<$a> <$b> <$c>"
5165 Removes the named files or directories.
5166 If a name refer to a mailbox, e.g., a Maildir mailbox, then a mailbox
5167 type specific removal will be performed, deleting the complete mailbox.
5168 The user is asked for confirmation in interactive mode.
5172 Takes the name of an existing folder
5173 and the name for the new folder
5174 and renames the first to the second one.
5175 Both folders must be of the same type.
5179 (R) Reply to originator.
5180 Does not reply to other recipients of the original message.
5182 will exchange this command with
5184 Unless the internal variable
5186 is set the recipient address will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5190 (r) Take a message and group-responds to it by addressing the sender
5193 .Va followup-to-honour ,
5196 .Va recipients-in-cc
5197 influence response behaviour.
5200 offers special support for replying to mailing lists.
5201 Unless the internal variable
5203 is set recipient addresses will be stripped from comments, names etc.
5216 but initiates a group-reply regardless of the value of
5223 but responds to the sender only regardless of the value of
5230 but does not add any header lines.
5231 This is not a way to hide the sender's identity,
5232 but useful for sending a message again to the same recipients.
5236 Takes a list of messages and a user name
5237 and sends each message to the named user.
5239 and related header fields are prepended to the new copy of the message.
5257 .It Ic respondsender
5263 (ret) Superseded by the multiplexer
5268 Only available inside the scope of a
5272 this will stop evaluation of any further macro content, and return
5273 execution control to the caller.
5274 If no arguments are specified, the return value, which will be stored in
5276 as well as the macro command exit status, which is made available in
5279 If only the return value is given the command exit status will be 0.
5280 Both optional parameters must be specified as unsigned (positive)
5283 \*(ID Notes: any non-0 command exit status is treated as a hard error
5284 by the state machinery, and will be propagated up and cause, e.g.,
5285 a file inclusion via
5287 to fail; this two argument form likely is a temporary hack that will
5294 but saves the messages in a file named after the local part of the
5295 sender of the first message instead of (in
5297 and) taking a filename argument.
5301 (s) Takes a message list and a filename and appends each message in turn
5302 to the end of the file.
5303 If no filename is given, the
5306 The filename in quotes, followed by the generated character count
5307 is echoed on the user's terminal.
5310 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
5311 the messages are marked for deletion.
5312 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5317 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5322 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5327 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5332 Takes a message specification (list) and displays a header summary of
5333 all matching messages, as via
5335 This command is an alias of
5338 .Sx "Specifying messages" .
5342 Takes a message list and marks all messages as having been read.
5346 (se) Without arguments this command shows all internal variables which
5347 are currently known to \*(UA (they have been set).
5348 A more verbose listing will be produced if either of
5352 are set, in which case variables may be preceded with a comment line
5353 that gives some context of what \*(UA knows about the given variable.
5355 Otherwise the given variables (and arguments) are set or adjusted.
5356 Arguments are of the form
5358 (no space before or after
5362 if there is no value, i.e., a boolean variable.
5363 Quotation marks may be placed around any part of the assignment
5364 statement to quote blanks or tabs, e.g.,
5366 .Dl set indentprefix='->'
5368 If an argument begins with
5372 the effect is the same as invoking the
5374 command with the remaining part of the variable
5375 .Pf ( Ql unset save ) .
5379 that is known to map to an environment variable will automatically cause
5380 updates in the program environment (unsetting a variable in the
5381 environment requires corresponding system support).
5382 Please use the command
5384 for further environmental control.
5389 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
5395 Apply shell quoting rules to the given raw-data arguments.
5399 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5400 The return status is tracked via
5402 The first argument specifies the operation:
5406 cause shell quoting to be applied to the remains of the line, and
5407 expanded away thereof, respectively.
5408 If the former is prefixed with a plus-sign, the quoted result will not
5409 be roundtrip enabled, and thus can be decoded only in the very same
5410 environment that was used to perform the encode; also see
5411 .Cd mle-quote-rndtrip .
5415 (sh) Invokes an interactive version of the shell.
5419 Without arguments the list of all currently defined shortcuts is
5421 Otherwise all given arguments are treated as pairs of shortcuts and
5422 their expansions, creating new or changing already existing shortcuts,
5424 Shortcuts can be removed with the command
5429 Only available inside the scope of a
5431 ed macro, this will shift the positional parameters (starting at
5433 by the given number (which must be an unsigned, positive, decimal),
5434 or 1 if no argument has been given.
5435 It is an error if the value exceeds the number of positional parameters.
5436 If the given number is 0, no action is performed, successfully.
5442 but performs neither MIME decoding nor decryption, so that the raw
5443 message text is shown.
5447 (si) Shows the size in characters of each message of the given
5452 Shows the current sorting criterion when used without an argument.
5453 Otherwise creates a sorted representation of the current folder,
5456 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in
5458 Message numbers are the same as in regular mode.
5462 a header summary in the new order is also displayed.
5463 Automatic folder sorting can be enabled by setting the
5465 variable, as in, e.g.,
5466 .Ql set autosort=thread .
5467 Possible sorting criterions are:
5469 .Bl -tag -compact -width "subject"
5471 Sort the messages by their
5473 field, that is by the time they were sent.
5475 Sort messages by the value of their
5477 field, that is by the address of the sender.
5480 variable is set, the sender's real name (if any) is used.
5482 Sort the messages by their size.
5484 \*(OP Sort the message by their spam score, as has been classified by
5487 Sort the messages by their message status.
5489 Sort the messages by their subject.
5491 Create a threaded display.
5493 Sort messages by the value of their
5495 field, that is by the address of the recipient.
5498 variable is set, the recipient's real name (if any) is used.
5503 \*(NQ (so) The source command reads commands from the given file.
5504 .Sx "Filename transformations"
5506 If the given expanded argument ends with a vertical bar
5508 then the argument will instead be interpreted as a shell command and
5509 \*(UA will read the output generated by it.
5510 Interpretation of commands read is stopped when an error is encountered.
5513 cannot be used from within macros that execute as
5514 .Va folder-hook Ns s
5517 i.e., it can only be called from macros that were
5522 \*(NQ The difference to
5524 (beside not supporting pipe syntax aka shell command input) is that
5525 this command will not generate an error nor warn if the given file
5526 argument cannot be opened successfully.
5530 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and clears their
5536 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and causes the
5538 to forget it has ever used them to train its Bayesian filter.
5539 Unless otherwise noted the
5541 flag of the message is inspected to chose whether a message shall be
5549 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
5553 This also clears the
5555 flag of the messages in question.
5559 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and rates them using the configured
5560 .Va spam-interface ,
5561 without modifying the messages, but setting their
5563 flag as appropriate; because the spam rating headers are lost the rate
5564 will be forgotten once the mailbox is left.
5565 Refer to the manual section
5567 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
5571 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and sets their
5577 \*(OP Takes a list of messages and informs the Bayesian filter of the
5583 flag of the messages in question.
5592 Create a threaded representation of the current folder,
5593 i.\|e. indent messages that are replies to other messages in the header
5594 display and change the
5596 command and the addressing modes such that they refer to messages in the
5598 Message numbers are the same as in unthreaded mode.
5602 a header summary in threaded order is also displayed.
5611 slot for white- and blacklisting header fields.
5615 (to) Takes a message list and types out the first
5617 lines of each message on the users' terminal.
5618 Unless a special selection has been established for the
5622 command, the only header fields that are displayed are
5633 It is possible to apply compression to what is displayed by setting
5635 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
5640 (tou) Takes a message list and marks the messages for saving in
5642 \*(UA deviates from the POSIX standard with this command,
5645 command will display the following message instead of the current one.
5651 but also displays header fields which would not pass the
5653 selection, and all parts of MIME
5654 .Ql multipart/alternative
5659 (t) Takes a message list and types out each message on the users'
5663 For MIME multipart messages, all parts with a content type of
5667 are shown, the other are hidden except for their headers.
5668 Messages are decrypted and converted to the terminal character set
5673 Delete all given accounts.
5674 An error message is shown if a given account is not defined.
5677 will discard all existing accounts.
5681 (una) Takes a list of names defined by alias commands
5682 and discards the remembered groups of users.
5685 will discard all existing aliases.
5689 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been answered.
5695 ing, specified by its context and input sequence, both of which may be
5696 specified as a wildcard (asterisk,
5700 will remove all bindings of all contexts.
5704 Only applicable to threaded mode.
5705 Takes a message list and makes the message and all replies to it visible
5706 in header summaries again.
5707 When a message becomes the current message,
5708 it is automatically made visible.
5709 Also when a message with collapsed replies is displayed,
5710 all of these are automatically uncollapsed.
5716 mapping for the given colour type (see
5718 for a list of types) and mapping; if the optional precondition argument
5719 is used then only the exact tuple of mapping and precondition is removed.
5722 will remove all mappings (no precondition allowed).
5724 .Sx "Coloured display"
5725 for the general picture.
5729 Undefine all given macros.
5730 An error message is shown if a given macro is not defined.
5733 will discard all existing macros.
5737 (u) Takes a message list and marks each message as not being deleted.
5740 variable is set, the last message restored will be
5742 d automatically; if no message list had been specified then the usual
5743 search for a visible message is performed, as documented for
5745 showing only the next input prompt if the search fails.
5753 Takes a message list and
5759 Takes a message list and marks each message as not being
5764 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5769 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5774 Remove all the given command
5778 will remove all ghosts.
5782 Superseded by the multiplexer
5787 Delete all given MIME types, e.g.,
5788 .Ql unmimetype text/plain
5789 will remove all registered specifications for the MIME type
5793 will discard all existing MIME types, just as will
5795 but which also reenables cache initialization via
5796 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
5800 Forget about all the given mailing lists.
5803 will remove all lists.
5808 .It Ic unmlsubscribe
5809 Remove the subscription attribute from all given mailing lists.
5812 will clear the attribute from all lists which have it set.
5823 Takes a message list and marks each message as not having been read.
5827 Superseded by the multiplexer
5832 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5837 \*(OB Superseded by the multiplexer
5842 \*(NQ (uns) Takes a list of internal variable names and discards their
5843 remembered values; the reverse of
5852 s given as arguments, the special argument
5854 will remove all shortcuts.
5858 Disable sorted or threaded mode
5864 return to normal message order and,
5868 displays a header summary.
5878 Perform URL percent codec operations on the raw-data argument, rather
5879 according to RFC 3986.
5883 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5884 The return status is tracked via
5886 This is a character set agnostic and thus locale dependent operation,
5887 and it may decode bytes which are invalid in the current locale, unless
5888 the input solely consists of characters in the portable character set, see
5889 .Sx "Character sets" .
5890 \*(ID This command does not about URLs beside that.
5892 The first argument specifies the operation:
5896 perform plain URL percent en- and decoding, respectively.
5900 perform a slightly modified operation which should be better for
5901 pathnames: it does not allow a tilde
5903 and will neither accept hyphen-minus
5907 as an initial character.
5908 The remains of the line form the URL data which is to be converted.
5912 \*(NQ Edit the values of or create the given variable(s) in the
5914 Boolean variables cannot be edited, and variables can also not be
5920 \*(NQ This command produces the same output as the listing mode of
5924 ity adjustments, but only for the given variables.
5928 \*(OP Takes a message list and verifies each message.
5929 If a message is not a S/MIME signed message,
5930 verification will fail for it.
5931 The verification process checks if the message was signed using a valid
5933 if the message sender's email address matches one of those contained
5934 within the certificate,
5935 and if the message content has been altered.
5948 \*(NQ Evaluate arguments according to a given operator.
5949 This is a multiplexer command which can be used to perform signed 64-bit
5950 numeric calculations as well as string operations.
5951 It uses polish notation, i.e., the operator is the first argument and
5952 defines the number and type, and the meaning of the remaining arguments.
5953 An empty argument is replaced with a 0 if a number is expected.
5957 .Sx "Command modifiers" ) .
5958 The return status is tracked via
5960 the result that is shown in case of (soft) errors is
5962 In general only invalid use cases cause hard errors which are reflected in
5964 and affect the state machine.
5967 Numeric operations work on one or two signed 64-bit integers.
5968 One integer is expected by assignment (equals sign
5970 which does nothing but parsing the argument, thus detecting validity and
5971 possible overflow conditions, and unary not (tilde
5973 which creates the bitwise complement.
5974 Two integers are used by addition (plus sign
5976 subtraction (hyphen-minus
5978 multiplication (asterisk
5982 and modulo (percent sign
5984 as well as for the bitwise operators logical or (vertical bar
5987 bitwise and (ampersand
5990 bitwise xor (circumflex
5992 the bitwise signed left- and right shifts
5995 as well as for the unsigned right shift
5999 All numeric operators can be suffixed with a commercial at
6003 this will turn the operation into a saturated one, which means that
6004 overflow errors and division and modulo by zero are still reflected in
6005 the return status, but the result will linger at the minimum or maximum
6006 possible value, instead of overflowing (or trapping).
6007 For the bitwise shifts, the saturated maximum is 63.
6008 If in saturated mode the overflow occurs during parsing the numbers,
6009 then the actual operation will not be performed but the given maximum
6010 value is used as the result immediately.
6013 String operations that take one argument are
6015 which queries the length of the given argument,
6017 which calculates the Chris Torek hash of the given string, and
6019 which performs the usual
6020 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
6021 on its argument, as well as
6023 which generates a random string of the given length, or of
6025 bytes (a constant from
6027 if the value 0 is given; the random string will be base64url encoded
6028 according to RFC 4648, and thus be usable as a file name.
6031 String operations with two or more arguments are
6033 which searches in the first for the second argument, and shows the
6034 resulting 0-based offset shall it have been found,
6036 which is identical to
6038 but works case-insensitively according to the rules of the ASCII
6041 will show a substring of its first argument:
6042 the second argument is the 0-based starting offset, the optional third
6043 argument can be used to specify the length of the desired substring,
6044 by default the entire string is used;
6045 this operation tries to work around faulty arguments, but the (soft)
6046 return status will still reflect them (set
6053 will try to match the first argument with the regular expression given
6054 in the second argument, as does
6056 but which is case-insensitive.
6057 These operators match according to the active
6059 locale and thus should match correctly strings in the locale encoding.
6060 If the optional third argument has been given then instead of showing
6061 the match offset a replacement operation is performed:
6062 the third argument is treated as if specified via dollar-single-quote
6064 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) ,
6065 and any occurrence of a positional parameter, e.g.,
6067 is replaced by the corresponding match group of the regular expression.
6069 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6070 ? vexpr -@ +1 -9223372036854775808
6071 ? vput vexpr res ir bananarama (.*)nana(.*) '\e${1}au\e$2'
6078 (v) Takes a message list and invokes the display editor on each message.
6079 Modified contents are discarded unless the
6085 (w) For conventional messages the body without all headers is written.
6086 The original message is never marked for deletion in the originating
6088 The output is decrypted and converted to its native format as necessary.
6089 If the output file exists, the text is appended.
6090 If a message is in MIME multipart format its first part is written to
6091 the specified file as for conventional messages, handling of the remains
6092 depends on the execution mode.
6093 No special handling of compressed files is performed.
6095 In interactive mode the user is consecutively asked for the filenames of
6096 the processed parts.
6097 For convience saving of each part may be skipped by giving an empty
6098 value, the same result as writing it to
6100 Shell piping the part content by specifying a leading vertical bar
6102 character for the filename is supported.
6103 Other user input undergoes the usual
6104 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
6105 and contents of the destination file are overwritten if the file
6108 \*(ID In non-interactive mode any part which does not specify a filename
6109 is ignored, and suspicious parts of filenames of the remaining parts are
6110 URL percent encoded (as via
6112 to prevent injection of malicious character sequences, resulting in
6113 a filename that will be written into the current directory.
6114 Existing files will not be overwritten, instead the part number or
6115 a dot are appended after a number sign
6117 to the name until file creation succeeds (or fails due to other
6127 \*(NQ \*(UA presents message headers in
6129 fuls as described under the
6132 Without arguments this command scrolls to the next window of messages,
6133 likewise if the argument is
6137 scrolls to the last,
6139 scrolls to the first, and
6144 A number argument prefixed by
6148 indicates that the window is calculated in relation to the current
6149 position, and a number without a prefix specifies an absolute position.
6155 but scrolls to the next or previous window that contains at least one
6165 .\" .Sh COMMAND ESCAPES {{{
6166 .Sh "COMMAND ESCAPES"
6168 Here is a summary of the command escapes available in compose mode,
6169 which are used to perform special functions when composing messages.
6170 Command escapes are only recognized at the beginning of lines.
6171 The actual escape character can be set via the internal variable
6173 it defaults to the tilde
6177 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ic BaNg"
6180 Insert the string of text in the message prefaced by a single
6182 (If the escape character has been changed,
6183 that character must be doubled
6184 in order to send it at the beginning of a line.)
6187 .It Ic ~! Ar command
6188 Execute the indicated shell
6190 which follows, replacing unescaped exclamation marks with the previously
6191 executed command if the internal variable
6193 is set, then return to the message.
6197 Same effect as typing the end-of-file character.
6200 .It Ic ~: Ar \*(UA-command Ns \0or Ic ~_ Ar \*(UA-command
6201 Execute the given \*(UA command.
6202 Not all commands, however, are allowed.
6206 Write a summary of command escapes.
6209 .It Ic ~< Ar filename
6214 .It Ic ~<! Ar command
6216 is executed using the shell.
6217 Its standard output is inserted into the message.
6220 .It Ic ~@ Op Ar filename...
6221 Append or edit the list of attachments.
6224 arguments is expected (see
6225 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ;
6226 any token-separating commas are ignored), to be
6227 interpreted as documented for the command line option
6229 with the message number exception as below.
6232 arguments the attachment list is edited, entry by entry;
6233 if a filename is left empty, that attachment is deleted from the list;
6234 once the end of the list is reached either new attachments may be
6235 entered or the session can be quit by committing an empty
6238 For each mode, if a given file name solely consists of the number sign
6240 followed by a valid message number of the currently active mailbox, then
6241 the given message is attached as a MIME
6243 part (note the number sign is the comment character and must be quoted).
6247 Inserts the string contained in the
6250 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0Sign ) .
6255 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6263 Inserts the string contained in the
6266 .Ql Ic ~i Ns \0sign ) .
6271 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6278 .It Ic ~b Ar name ...
6279 Add the given names to the list of blind carbon copy recipients.
6282 .It Ic ~c Ar name ...
6283 Add the given names to the list of carbon copy recipients.
6287 Read the file specified by the
6289 variable into the message.
6293 Invoke the text editor on the message collected so far.
6294 After the editing session is finished,
6295 the user may continue appending text to the message.
6298 .It Ic ~F Ar messages
6299 Read the named messages into the message being sent, including all
6300 message headers and MIME parts.
6301 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
6304 .It Ic ~f Ar messages
6305 Read the named messages into the message being sent.
6306 If no messages are specified, read in the current message.
6307 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
6309 white- and blacklist selection of
6311 For MIME multipart messages,
6312 only the first displayable part is included.
6316 Edit the message header fields
6321 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
6322 The default values for these fields originate from the
6330 Edit the message header fields
6336 by typing each one in turn and allowing the user to edit the field.
6339 .It Ic ~i Ar variable
6340 Insert the value of the specified variable into the message,
6341 adding a newline character at the end.
6342 The message remains unaltered if the variable is unset or empty.
6347 ting the variable(s) instead!) The escape sequences tabulator
6354 .It Ic ~M Ar messages
6355 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
6358 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
6361 .It Ic ~m Ar messages
6362 Read the named messages into the message being sent,
6365 If no messages are specified, read the current message.
6366 Strips down the list of header fields according to the
6368 white- and blacklist selection of
6370 For MIME multipart messages,
6371 only the first displayable part is included.
6375 Display the message collected so far,
6376 prefaced by the message header fields
6377 and followed by the attachment list, if any.
6381 Abort the message being sent,
6382 copying it to the file specified by the
6389 .It Ic ~R Ar filename
6392 but indent each line that has been read by
6396 .It Ic ~r Ar filename Op Ar HERE-delimiter
6397 Read the named file into the message.
6399 can also be a hyphen-minus
6401 in which case standard input is used, e.g., for pasting purposes.
6402 Only in this latter mode
6404 may be given: if it is data will be read in until the given
6406 is seen on a line by itself, and encountering EOF is an error; the
6408 is a required argument in non-interactive mode;
6409 note that variables expansion is performed on the delimiter.
6413 Cause the named string to become the current subject field.
6414 Newline (NL) and carriage-return (CR) bytes are invalid and will be
6415 normalized to space (SP) characters.
6418 .It Ic ~t Ar name ...
6419 Add the given name(s) to the direct recipient list.
6422 .It Ic ~U Ar messages
6423 Read in the given / current message(s) excluding all headers, indented by
6427 .It Ic ~u Ar messages
6428 Read in the given / current message(s), excluding all headers.
6432 Invoke an alternate editor (defined by the
6434 environment variable) on the message collected so far.
6435 Usually, the alternate editor will be a screen editor.
6436 After the editor is quit,
6437 the user may resume appending text to the end of the message.
6440 .It Ic ~w Ar filename
6441 Write the message onto the named file.
6443 the message is appended to it.
6449 except that the message is not saved at all.
6452 .It Ic ~| Ar command
6453 Pipe the message through the specified filter command.
6454 If the command gives no output or terminates abnormally,
6455 retain the original text of the message.
6458 is often used as a rejustifying filter.
6462 .It Ic ~^ Ar cmd Op Ar subcmd Op Ar arg3 Op Ar arg4
6463 Low-level command ment for scripted message access, i.e., for
6464 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
6466 .Va on-compose-splice .
6467 The used protocol is likely subject to changes, and therefore the
6468 mentioned hooks receive the used protocol version as an initial line.
6469 In general the first field of a response line represents a status code
6470 which specifies whether a command was successful or not, whether result
6471 data is to be expected, and if, the format of the result data.
6472 The status codes are:
6475 .Bl -tag -compact -width _210_
6477 Status ok; the remains of the line are the result.
6479 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
6480 What follows are lines of result addresses, terminated by an empty line.
6481 The address lines consist of two fields, the first of which is the
6482 plain address, e.g.,
6484 separated by a single ASCII SP space from the second which contains the
6485 unstripped address, even if that is identical to the first field, e.g.,
6486 .Ql (Lovely) Bob <bob@exam.ple> .
6488 Status ok; the rest of the line is optionally used for more status.
6489 What follows are lines of furtherly unspecified string content,
6490 terminated by an empty line.
6491 (All the input, including the empty line, must be consumed before
6492 further commands can be issued.)
6494 Syntax error; invalid command.
6496 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
6498 Error: an argument fails verification.
6499 For example an invalid address has been specified.
6501 Error: an otherwise valid argument is rendered invalid due to context.
6502 For example, a second address is added to a header which may consist of
6503 a single address only.
6507 If a command indicates failure then the message will have remained
6509 Most commands can fail with
6511 if required arguments are missing (false command usage).
6512 The following commands are supported, and, as usual, case-insensitive:
6515 .Bl -hang -width header
6517 This command allows listing, inspection, and editing of message headers.
6518 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
6521 .Bl -hang -compact -width remove
6523 Without a third argument a list of all yet existing headers is given via
6525 this command is the default command of
6527 if no second argument has been given.
6528 A third argument restricts output to the given header only, which may
6531 if no such field is defined.
6534 Shows the content of the header given as the third argument.
6535 Dependent on the header type this may respond with
6539 any failure results in
6543 This will remove all instances of the header given as the third
6548 if no such header can be found.
6551 Create a new or an additional instance of the header given in the third
6552 argument, with the header body content as given in the fourth argument
6553 (the remains of the line).
6556 if the third argument specifies a free-form header field name that is
6557 invalid, or if body content extraction fails to succeed,
6559 if any extracted address does not pass syntax and/or security checks, and
6561 to indicate prevention of excessing a single-instance header \(em note that
6563 can be appended to (a space separator will be added automatically first).
6565 is returned upon success.
6570 This command allows listing, removal and addition of message attachments.
6571 The second argument specifies the subcommand to apply, one of:
6574 .Bl -hang -compact -width remove
6576 List all attachments via
6580 if no attachments exist.
6581 This command is the default command of
6583 if no second argument has been given.
6586 This will remove the attachment given as the third argument, and report
6590 if no such attachment can be found.
6591 If there exists any path component in the given argument, then an exact
6592 match of the path which has been used to create the attachment is used
6593 directly, but if only the basename of that path matches then all
6594 attachments are traversed to find an exact match first, and the removal
6595 occurs afterwards; if multiple basenames match, a
6598 Message attachments are treated as absolute pathnames.
6600 If no path component exists in the given argument, then all attachments
6601 will be searched for
6603 parameter matches as well as for matches of the basename of the path
6604 which has been used when the attachment has been created; multiple
6609 This will interpret the third argument as a number and remove the
6610 attachment at that list position (counting from one!), reporting
6614 if the argument is not a number or
6616 if no such attachment exists.
6619 Adds the attachment given as the third argument, specified exactly as
6620 documented for the command line option
6622 and supporting the message number extension as documented for
6626 upon success, with the index of the new attachment following,
6628 if the given file cannot be opened,
6630 if an on-the-fly performed character set conversion fails, otherwise
6632 is reported; this is also reported if character set conversion is
6633 requested but not available.
6636 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6638 and prints any known attributes of the first found attachment via
6642 if no such attachment can be found.
6643 The attributes are written as lines of keyword and value tuples, the
6644 keyword being separated from the rest of the line with an ASCII SP space
6648 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6650 and is otherwise identical to
6653 .It Ar attribute-set
6654 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6656 and will assign the attribute given as the fourth argument, which is
6657 expected to be a value tuple of keyword and other data, separated by
6658 a ASCII SP space or TAB tabulator character.
6659 If the value part is empty, then the given attribute is removed, or
6660 reset to a default value if existence of the attribute is crucial.
6663 upon success, with the index of the found attachment following,
6665 for message attachments or if the given keyword is invalid, and
6667 if no such attachment can be found.
6668 The following keywords may be used (case-insensitively):
6670 .Bl -hang -compact -width ".Ql filename"
6672 Sets the filename of the MIME part, i.e., the name that is used for
6673 display and when (suggesting a name for) saving (purposes).
6674 .It Ql content-description
6675 Associate some descriptive information to the attachment's content, used
6676 in favour of the plain filename by some MUAs.
6678 May be used for uniquely identifying MIME entities in several contexts;
6679 this expects a special reference address format as defined in RFC 2045
6682 upon address content verification failure.
6684 Specifies the media type and subtype of the part; managed automatically.
6685 .It Ql content-disposition
6686 Automatically set to the string
6690 .It Ar attribute-set-at
6691 This uses the same search mechanism as described for
6693 and is otherwise identical to
6703 .\" .Sh INTERNAL VARIABLES {{{
6704 .Sh "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
6706 Internal \*(UA variables are controlled via the
6710 commands; prefixing a variable name with the string
6714 has the same effect as using
6720 Creation or editing of variables can be performed in the
6725 will give more insight on the given variable(s), and
6727 when called without arguments, will show a listing of all variables.
6728 Both commands support a more
6731 Some well-known variables will also become inherited from the
6734 implicitly, others can be explicitly imported with the command
6736 and henceforth share said properties.
6739 Two different kind of internal variables exist.
6740 There are boolean variables, which can only be in one of the two states
6744 and value variables with a(n optional) string value.
6745 For the latter proper quoting is necessary upon assignment time, the
6746 introduction of the section
6748 documents the supported quoting rules.
6750 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6751 wysh set one=val\e 1 two="val 2" \e
6752 three='val "3"' four=$'val \e'4\e''; \e
6753 varshow one two three four; \e
6754 unset one two three four
6758 Dependent upon the actual option the string values will be interpreted
6759 as numbers, colour names, normal text etc., but there also exists
6760 a special kind of string value, the
6761 .Dq boolean string ,
6762 which must either be a decimal integer (in which case
6766 and any other value is true) or any of the (case-insensitive) strings
6772 for a false boolean and
6778 for a true boolean; a special kind of boolean string is the
6780 which is a boolean string that can optionally be prefixed with the
6781 (case-insensitive) term
6785 which causes prompting of the user in interactive mode, with the given
6786 boolean as the default value.
6788 .\" .Ss "Initial settings" {{{
6789 .\" (Keep in SYNC: ./nail.h:okeys, ./nail.rc, ./nail.1:"Initial settings")
6790 .Ss "Initial settings"
6792 The standard POSIX 2008/Cor 2-2016 mandates the following initial
6798 .Pf no Va autoprint ,
6812 .Pf no Va ignoreeof ,
6814 .Pf no Va keepsave ,
6816 .Pf no Va outfolder ,
6824 .Pf no Va sendwait ,
6833 Notes: \*(UA does not support the
6835 variable \(en use command line options or
6837 to pass options through to a
6839 And the default global
6841 file, which is loaded unless the
6843 (with according argument) or
6845 command line options have been used, or the
6846 .Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
6847 environment variable is set (see
6848 .Sx "Resource files" )
6849 bends those initial settings a bit, e.g., it sets the variables
6854 to name a few, establishes a default
6856 selection etc., and should thus be taken into account.
6859 .\" .Ss "Variables" {{{
6862 .Bl -tag -width ".It Va BaNg"
6866 \*(RO The (hard) exit status of the last command.
6867 This exit status has a meaning for the state machine, in parts
6868 prescribed by the POSIX standard, and, e.g., for
6871 .Va batch-exit-on-error .
6872 This is why \*(UA also knows about a
6874 exit status, which is tracked in
6881 exit status of the last command, which, different to
6883 has no meaning for the state machine, and can therefore easily transport
6884 different error-indicating values.
6885 It is directly addressable with the command
6897 \*(RO This is a multiplexer variable which performs dynamic expansion of
6898 the requested state or condition, of which there are:
6901 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va BaNg"
6905 .It Va ^ERR , ^ERRDOC , ^ERRNAME
6906 The number, documentation, and name of the current
6908 respectively, which is usually set after an error occurred.
6909 \*(ID This machinery is new and is usually reliable only if a command
6910 explicitly states that it manages
6912 Each of those variables can be suffixed with a hyphen minus followed by
6913 a name or number, in which case the expansion refers to the given error.
6914 Note this is a direct mapping of (a subset of) the system error values:
6915 .Bd -literal -offset indent
6917 eval echo \e$1: \e$^ERR-$1: ERR-\e$^ERRNAME-$1: \e$^ERRDOC-$1
6930 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6932 ed macro, this will expand to all parameters of the macro, separated by
6934 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
6936 are not yet supported.
6940 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6942 ed macro, this will expand to all parameters of the macro, separated by
6944 \*(ID The special semantics of the equally named special parameter of the
6946 are not yet supported.
6950 \*(RO Only available inside the scope of a
6952 ed macro, this will expand to the number of positional parameters in
6957 \*(RO Available inside the scope of a
6961 ed macro, this expands to the name of the calling macro, or to the empty
6962 string if the macro is running from top-level.
6963 For the \*(OPal regular expression search and replace operator of
6965 this expands to the entire matching expression.
6969 \*(RO Available inside the scope of a
6973 ed macro, this will access the first positional parameter passed.
6974 All further parameters can be accessed with this syntax, too, e.g.,
6977 etc.; positional parameters can be shifted off the stack by calling
6979 Positional parameters are also accessible in the \*(OPal regular
6980 expression search and replace expression of
6985 \*(RO Is set to the active
6989 .It Va add-file-recipients
6990 \*(BO When file or pipe recipients have been specified,
6991 mention them in the corresponding address fields of the message instead
6992 of silently stripping them from their recipient list.
6993 By default such addressees are not mentioned.
6997 \*(BO Causes only the local part to be evaluated
6998 when comparing addresses.
7002 \*(RO Is set to the list of
7007 \*(BO Causes messages saved in
7009 to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
7010 This should always be set.
7014 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to prompt for the subject of each message sent.
7015 If the user responds with simply a newline,
7016 no subject field will be sent.
7020 \*(BO Causes the prompts for
7024 lists to appear after the message has been edited.
7028 \*(BO If set, \*(UA asks for files to attach at the end of each message,
7029 shall the list be found empty at that time.
7030 An empty line finalizes the list.
7034 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for carbon copy recipients
7035 (at the end of each message if
7039 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
7040 An empty line finalizes the list.
7044 \*(BO Causes the user to be prompted for blind carbon copy
7045 recipients (at the end of each message if
7049 are set) shall the list be found empty (at that time).
7050 An empty line finalizes the list.
7054 \*(BO\*(OP Causes the user to be prompted if the message is to be
7055 signed at the end of each message.
7058 variable is ignored when this variable is set.
7062 \*(BO Alternative name for
7067 A sequence of characters to display in the
7071 as shown in the display of
7073 each for one type of messages (see
7074 .Sx "Message states" ) ,
7075 with the default being
7078 .Ql NU\ \ *HMFAT+\-$~
7081 variable is set, in the following order:
7083 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql _"
7105 start of a collapsed thread.
7107 an uncollapsed thread (TODO ignored for now).
7111 classified as possible spam.
7117 Specifies a list of recipients to which a blind carbon copy of each
7118 outgoing message will be sent automatically.
7122 Specifies a list of recipients to which a carbon copy of each outgoing
7123 message will be sent automatically.
7127 \*(BO Causes threads to be collapsed automatically when threaded mode
7134 \*(BO Enable automatic
7136 ing of a(n existing)
7142 commands, e.g., the message that becomes the new
7144 is shown automatically, as via
7151 \*(BO\*(OB Causes threaded mode (see the
7153 command) to be entered automatically when a folder is opened.
7155 .Ql autosort=thread .
7159 Causes sorted mode (see the
7161 command) to be entered automatically with the value of this variable as
7162 sorting method when a folder is opened, e.g.,
7163 .Ql set autosort=thread .
7167 \*(BO Enables the substitution of all not (reverse-solidus) escaped
7170 characters by the contents of the last executed command for the
7172 shell escape command and
7174 one of the compose mode
7175 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7176 If this variable is not set no reverse solidus stripping is performed.
7179 .It Va batch-exit-on-error
7180 If the batch mode has been enabled via the
7182 command line option, then this variable will be consulted whenever \*(UA
7183 completes one operation.
7184 It is ment as a convenient alternative to manually testing
7186 If any value is set, a number is expected; if it is
7188 then each failed operation will cause \*(UA to exit.
7190 \*(ID If it is set without a value, then only top-level operations that
7192 .Dq on the command-prompt ,
7193 i.e., neither in running macros nor from within source files etc., are
7194 considered, unless a main operation that directly affects the return
7195 value, like, e.g., a failed
7197 command, is affected; this mode of operation is likely to change in v15,
7198 and tests should be performed to see whether the desired effect is seen.
7202 \*(OP Terminals generate multi-byte sequences for certain forms of
7203 input, for example for function and other special keys.
7204 Some terminals however do not write these multi-byte sequences as
7205 a whole, but byte-by-byte, and the latter is what \*(UA actually reads.
7206 This variable specifies the timeout in milliseconds that the MLE (see
7207 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
7208 waits for more bytes to arrive unless it considers a sequence
7214 \*(BO Causes automatic display of a header summary after executing a
7216 command, and thus complements the standard variable
7218 which controls header summary display on program startup.
7219 It is only meaningful if
7225 \*(BO Sets some cosmetical features to traditional BSD style;
7226 has the same affect as setting
7228 and all other variables prefixed with
7230 it also changes the behaviour of
7232 (which does not exist in BSD).
7236 \*(BO Changes the letters shown in the first column of a header
7237 summary to traditional BSD style.
7241 \*(BO Changes the display of columns in a header summary to traditional
7246 \*(BO Changes some informational messages to traditional BSD style.
7252 field to appear immediately after the
7254 field in message headers and with the
7256 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7260 The value that should appear in the
7264 MIME header fields when no character set conversion of the message data
7266 This defaults to US-ASCII, and the chosen character set should be
7267 US-ASCII compatible.
7271 \*(OP The default 8-bit character set that is used as an implicit last
7272 member of the variable
7274 This defaults to UTF-8 if character set conversion capabilities are
7275 available, and to ISO-8859-1 otherwise, in which case the only supported
7278 and this variable is effectively ignored.
7279 Refer to the section
7280 .Sx "Character sets"
7281 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
7284 .It Va charset-unknown-8bit
7285 \*(OP RFC 1428 specifies conditions when internet mail gateways shall
7287 the content of a mail message by using a character set with the name
7289 Because of the unclassified nature of this character set \*(UA will not
7290 be capable to convert this character set to any other character set.
7291 If this variable is set any message part which uses the character set
7293 is assumed to really be in the character set given in the value,
7294 otherwise the (final) value of
7296 is used for this purpose.
7298 This variable will also be taken into account if a MIME type (see
7299 .Sx "The mime.types files" )
7300 of a MIME message part that uses the
7302 character set is forcefully treated as text.
7306 The default value for the
7311 .It Va colour-disable
7312 \*(BO\*(OP Forcefully disable usage of colours.
7313 Also see the section
7314 .Sx "Coloured display" .
7318 \*(BO\*(OP Whether colour shall be used for output that is paged through
7320 Note that pagers may need special command line options, e.g.,
7328 in order to support colours.
7329 Often doing manual adjustments is unnecessary since \*(UA may perform
7330 adjustments dependent on the value of the environment variable
7332 (see there for more).
7336 In a(n interactive) terminal session, then if this valued variable is
7337 set it will be used as a threshold to determine how many lines the given
7338 output has to span before it will be displayed via the configured
7342 can be forced by setting this to the value
7344 setting it without a value will deduce the current height of the
7345 terminal screen to compute the treshold (see
7350 \*(ID At the moment this uses the count of lines of the message in wire
7351 format, which, dependent on the
7353 of the message, is unrelated to the number of display lines.
7354 (The software is old and historically the relation was a given thing.)
7358 Define a set of custom headers to be injected into newly composed or
7359 forwarded messages; it is also possible to create custom headers in
7362 which can be automated by setting one of the hooks
7363 .Va on-compose-splice-shell
7365 .Va on-compose-splice .
7366 The value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of custom headers to
7367 be injected, to include commas in the header bodies escape them with
7369 \*(ID Overwriting of automatically managed headers is neither supported
7372 .Dl set customhdr='Hdr1: Body1-1\e, Body1-2, Hdr2: Body2'
7376 Controls the appearance of the
7378 date and time format specification of the
7380 variable, that is used, for example, when viewing the summary of
7382 If unset, then the local receiving date is used and displayed
7383 unformatted, otherwise the message sending
7385 It is possible to assign a
7387 format string and control formatting, but embedding newlines via the
7389 format is not supported, and will result in display errors.
7391 .Ql %Y-%m-%d %H:%M ,
7393 .Va datefield-markout-older .
7396 .It Va datefield-markout-older
7397 Only used in conjunction with
7399 Can be used to create a visible distinction of messages dated more than
7400 a day in the future, or older than six months, a concept comparable to the
7402 option of the POSIX utility
7404 If set to the empty string, then the plain month, day and year of the
7406 will be displayed, but a
7408 format string to control formatting can be assigned.
7414 \*(BO Enables debug messages and obsoletion warnings, disables the
7415 actual delivery of messages and also implies
7421 .It Va disposition-notification-send
7423 .Ql Disposition-Notification-To:
7424 header (RFC 3798) with the message.
7428 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-HOST
7430 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
7431 .\" for SMTP accounts on a specific host.
7432 .\" TODO .It Va disposition-notification-send-USER@HOST
7434 .\".Va disposition-notification-send
7435 .\"for a specific account.
7439 \*(BO When dot is set, a period
7441 on a line by itself during message input in (interactive) compose mode
7442 will be treated as end-of-message (in addition to the normal end-of-file
7451 .It Va dotlock-ignore-error
7452 \*(BO\*(OP Synchronization of mailboxes which \*(UA treats as
7454 .Sx "primary system mailbox" Ns
7455 es (see, e.g., the notes on
7456 .Sx "Filename transformations" ,
7457 as well as the documentation of
7459 will be protected with so-called dotlock files\(emthe traditional mail
7460 spool file locking method\(emin addition to system file locking.
7461 Because \*(UA ships with a privilege-separated dotlock creation program
7462 that should always be able to create such a dotlock file there is no
7463 good reason to ignore dotlock file creation errors, and thus these are
7464 fatal unless this variable is set.
7468 \*(BO If this variable is set then the editor is started automatically
7469 when a message is composed in interactive mode, as if the
7471 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
7475 variable is implied for this automatically spawned editor session.
7479 \*(BO When a message is edited while being composed,
7480 its header is included in the editable text.
7490 fields are accepted within the header, other fields are ignored.
7494 \*(BO When entering interactive mode \*(UA normally writes
7495 .Dq \&No mail for user
7496 and exits immediately if a mailbox is empty or does not exist.
7497 If this variable is set \*(UA starts even with an empty or nonexistent
7498 mailbox (the latter behaviour furtherly depends upon
7505 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding
7506 to use in outgoing text messages and message parts, where applicable.
7507 (7-bit clean text messages are sent as-is, without a transfer encoding.)
7510 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
7513 8-bit transport effectively causes the raw data be passed through
7514 unchanged, but may cause problems when transferring mail messages over
7515 channels that are not ESMTP (RFC 1869) compliant.
7516 Also, several input data constructs are not allowed by the
7517 specifications and may cause a different transfer-encoding to be used.
7518 .It Ql quoted-printable
7520 Quoted-printable encoding is 7-bit clean and has the property that ASCII
7521 characters are passed through unchanged, so that an english message can
7522 be read as-is; it is also acceptible for other single-byte locales that
7523 share many characters with ASCII, like, e.g., ISO-8859-1.
7524 The encoding will cause a large overhead for messages in other character
7525 sets: e.g., it will require up to twelve (12) bytes to encode a single
7526 UTF-8 character of four (4) bytes.
7528 .Pf (Or\0 Ql b64 . )
7529 The default encoding, it is 7-bit clean and will always be used for
7531 This encoding has a constant input:output ratio of 3:4, regardless of
7532 the character set of the input data it will encode three bytes of input
7533 to four bytes of output.
7534 This transfer-encoding is not human readable without performing
7540 If defined, the first character of the value of this variable
7541 gives the character to use in place of tilde
7544 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
7545 If set to the empty string, command escapes are disabled.
7549 If not set then file and command pipeline targets are not allowed,
7550 and any such address will be filtered out, giving a warning message.
7551 If set without a value then all possible recipient address
7552 specifications will be accepted \(en see the section
7553 .Sx "On sending mail, and non-interactive mode"
7555 To accept them, but only in interactive mode, or when tilde commands
7556 were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
7560 set this to the (case-insensitive) value
7562 (it actually acts like
7563 .Ql restrict,-all,+name,+addr ,
7564 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
7566 In fact the value is interpreted as a comma-separated list of values.
7569 then the existence of disallowed specifications is treated as a hard
7570 send error instead of only filtering them out.
7571 The remaining values specify whether a specific type of recipient
7572 address specification is allowed (optionally indicated by a plus sign
7574 prefix) or disallowed (prefixed with a hyphen-minus
7578 addresses all possible address specifications,
7582 command pipeline targets,
7584 plain user names and (MTA) aliases (\*(OB
7586 may be used as an alternative syntax to
7591 These kind of values are interpreted in the given order, so that
7592 .Ql restrict,\:fail,\:+file,\:-all,\:+addr
7593 will cause hard errors for any non-network address recipient address
7594 unless \*(UA is in interactive mode or has been started with the
7598 command line option; in the latter case(s) any address may be used, then.
7600 Historically invalid network addressees are silently stripped off.
7601 To change this and ensure that any encountered invalid email address
7602 instead causes a hard error, ensure the string
7604 is an entry in the above list.
7605 Setting this automatically enables network addressees
7606 (it actually acts like
7607 .Ql failinvaddr,+addr ,
7608 so that care for ordering issues must be taken) .
7612 Unless this variable is set additional
7614 (Mail-Transfer-Agent)
7615 arguments from the command line, as can be given after a
7617 separator, are ignored due to safety reasons.
7618 However, if set to the special (case-insensitive) value
7620 then the presence of additional MTA arguments is treated as a hard
7621 error that causes \*(UA to exit with failure status.
7622 A lesser strict variant is the otherwise identical
7624 which does accept such arguments in interactive mode, or if tilde
7625 commands were enabled explicitly by using one of the command line options
7632 \*(RO String giving a list of features \*(UA, preceded with a plus sign
7634 if the feature is available, and a hyphen-minus
7637 The output of the command
7639 will include this information.
7643 \*(BO This setting reverses the meanings of a set of reply commands,
7644 turning the lowercase variants, which by default address all recipients
7645 included in the header of a message
7646 .Pf ( Ic reply , respond , followup )
7647 into the uppercase variants, which by default address the sender only
7648 .Pf ( Ic Reply , Respond , Followup )
7651 .Ic replysender , respondsender , followupsender
7653 .Ic replyall , respondall , followupall
7654 are not affected by the current setting of
7659 .It Va file-hook-load-EXTENSION , file-hook-save-EXTENSION
7660 It is possible to install file hooks which will be used by the
7662 command in order to be able to transparently handle (through an
7663 intermediate temporary file) files with specific
7665 s: the variable values can include shell snippets and are expected to
7666 write data to standard output / read data from standard input,
7668 \*(ID The variables may not be changed while there is a mailbox
7670 .Bd -literal -offset indent
7671 set file-hook-load-xy='echo >&2 XY-LOAD; gzip -cd' \e
7672 file-hook-save-xy='echo >&2 XY-SAVE; gzip -c' \e
7673 record=+null-sent.xy
7678 The default path under which mailboxes are to be saved:
7679 file names that begin with the plus sign
7681 will have the plus sign replaced with the value of this variable if set,
7682 otherwise the plus sign will remain unchanged when doing
7683 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
7686 for more on this topic.
7687 The value supports a subset of transformations itself, and if the
7688 non-empty value does not start with a solidus
7692 will be prefixed automatically.
7693 Once the actual value is evaluated first, the internal variable
7695 will be updated for caching purposes.
7699 This variable can be set to the name of a
7701 macro which will be called whenever a
7704 The macro will also be invoked when new mail arrives,
7705 but message lists for commands executed from the macro
7706 only include newly arrived messages then.
7708 are activated by default in a folder hook, causing the covered settings
7709 to be reverted once the folder is left again.
7712 Macro behaviour, including option localization, will change in v15.
7713 One should be aware of that and possibly embed version checks in the
7714 used resource file(s).
7717 .It Va folder-hook-FOLDER
7722 Unlike other folder specifications, the fully expanded name of a folder,
7723 without metacharacters, is used to avoid ambiguities.
7724 However, if the mailbox resides under
7728 specification is tried in addition, e.g., if
7732 (and thus relative to the user's home directory) then
7733 .Pa /home/usr1/mail/sent
7735 .Ql folder-hook-/home/usr1/mail/sent
7736 first, but then followed by
7737 .Ql folder-hook-+sent .
7740 .It Va folder-resolved
7741 \*(RO Set to the fully resolved path of
7743 once that evaluation has occurred; rather internal.
7747 \*(BO Controls whether a
7748 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
7749 header is generated when sending messages to known mailing lists.
7751 .Va followup-to-honour
7753 .Ic mlist , mlsubscribe , reply
7758 .It Va followup-to-honour
7760 .Ql Mail-Followup-To:
7761 header is honoured when group-replying to a message via
7765 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
7775 .It Va forward-as-attachment
7776 \*(BO Original messages are normally sent as inline text with the
7779 and only the first part of a multipart message is included.
7780 With this setting enabled messages are sent as unmodified MIME
7782 attachments with all of their parts included.
7786 The address (or a list of addresses) to put into the
7788 field of the message header, quoting RFC 5322:
7789 the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s)
7790 or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message.
7793 ing to messages these addresses are handled as if they were in the
7797 If the machine's hostname is not valid at the Internet (for example at
7798 a dialup machine) then either this variable or
7800 (\*(IN and with a defined SMTP protocol in
7803 adds even more fine-tuning capabilities),
7807 contains more than one address,
7810 variable is required (according to the standard RFC 5322).
7812 If a file-based MTA is used, then
7814 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
7816 can nonetheless be enforced to appear as the envelope sender address at
7817 the MTA protocol level (the RFC 5321 reverse-path), either by using the
7819 command line option (with an empty argument; see there for the complete
7820 picture on this topic), or by setting the internal variable
7821 .Va r-option-implicit .
7825 \*(BO When replying to or forwarding a message \*(UA normally removes
7826 the comment and name parts of email addresses.
7827 If this variable is set such stripping is not performed,
7828 and comments, names etc. are retained.
7832 The string to put before the text of a message with the
7836 .Va forward-as-attachment
7839 .Dq -------- Original Message --------
7840 if unset; No heading is put if it is set to the empty string.
7844 \*(BO Causes the header summary to be written at startup and after
7845 commands that affect the number of messages or the order of messages in
7846 the current folder; enabled by default.
7847 The command line option
7853 complements this and controls header summary display on folder changes.
7858 A format string to use for the summary of
7860 similar to the ones used for
7863 Format specifiers in the given string start with a percent sign
7865 and may be followed by an optional decimal number indicating the field
7866 width \(em if that is negative, the field is to be left-aligned.
7867 Valid format specifiers are:
7870 .Bl -tag -compact -width "_%%_"
7872 A plain percent sign.
7875 a space character but for the current message
7877 for which it expands to
7881 a space character but for the current message
7883 for which it expands to
7886 \*(OP The spam score of the message, as has been classified via the
7889 Shows only a replacement character if there is no spam support.
7891 Message attribute character (status flag); the actual content can be
7895 The date found in the
7897 header of the message when
7899 is set (the default), otherwise the date when the message was received.
7900 Formatting can be controlled by assigning a
7905 The indenting level in threaded mode.
7907 The address of the message sender.
7909 The message thread tree structure.
7910 (Note that this format does not support a field width.)
7912 The number of lines of the message, if available.
7916 The number of octets (bytes) in the message, if available.
7918 Message subject (if any).
7920 Message subject (if any) in double quotes.
7922 Message recipient flags: is the addressee of the message a known or
7923 subscribed mailing list \(en see
7928 The position in threaded/sorted order.
7932 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %-18f\ %16d\ %4l/%\-5o\ %i%-s ,
7934 .Ql %>\&%a\&%m\ %20-f\ \ %16d\ %3l/%\-5o\ %i%-S
7945 .It Va headline-bidi
7946 Bidirectional text requires special treatment when displaying headers,
7947 because numbers (in dates or for file sizes etc.) will not affect the
7948 current text direction, in effect resulting in ugly line layouts when
7949 arabic or other right-to-left text is to be displayed.
7950 On the other hand only a minority of terminals is capable to correctly
7951 handle direction changes, so that user interaction is necessary for
7953 Note that extended host system support is required nonetheless, e.g.,
7954 detection of the terminal character set is one precondition;
7955 and this feature only works in an Unicode (i.e., UTF-8) locale.
7957 In general setting this variable will cause \*(UA to encapsulate text
7958 fields that may occur when displaying
7960 (and some other fields, like dynamic expansions in
7962 with special Unicode control sequences;
7963 it is possible to fine-tune the terminal support level by assigning
7965 no value (or any value other than
7970 will make \*(UA assume that the terminal is capable to properly deal
7971 with Unicode version 6.3, in which case text is embedded in a pair of
7972 U+2068 (FIRST STRONG ISOLATE) and U+2069 (POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE)
7974 In addition no space on the line is reserved for these characters.
7976 Weaker support is chosen by using the value
7978 (Unicode 6.3, but reserve the room of two spaces for writing the control
7979 sequences onto the line).
7984 select Unicode 1.1 support (U+200E, LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK); the latter
7985 again reserves room for two spaces in addition.
7989 \*(OP If a line editor is available then this can be set to
7990 name the (expandable) path of the location of a permanent history file.
7995 .It Va history-gabby
7996 \*(BO\*(OP Add more entries to the history as is normally done.
7999 .It Va history-gabby-persist
8000 \*(BO\*(OP \*(UA's own MLE will not save the additional
8002 entries in persistent storage unless this variable is set.
8003 On the other hand it will not loose the knowledge of whether
8004 a persistent entry was gabby or not.
8010 \*(OP Setting this variable imposes a limit on the number of concurrent
8012 If set to the value 0 then no further history entries will be added, and
8013 loading and incorporation of the
8015 upon program startup can also be suppressed by doing this.
8016 Runtime changes will not be reflected, but will affect the number of
8017 entries saved to permanent storage.
8021 \*(BO This setting controls whether messages are held in the system
8023 and it is set by default.
8027 Use this string as hostname when expanding local addresses instead of
8028 the value obtained from
8032 It is used, e.g., in
8036 fields, as well as when generating
8038 MIME part related unique ID fields.
8039 Setting it to the empty string will cause the normal hostname to be
8040 used, but nonetheless enables creation of said ID fields.
8041 \*(IN in conjunction with the builtin SMTP
8044 also influences the results:
8045 one should produce some test messages with the desired combination of
8054 \*(BO\*(OP Can be used to turn off the automatic conversion of domain
8055 names according to the rules of IDNA (internationalized domain names
8057 Since the IDNA code assumes that domain names are specified with the
8059 character set, an UTF-8 locale charset is required to represent all
8060 possible international domain names (before conversion, that is).
8064 \*(BO Ignore interrupt signals from the terminal while entering
8065 messages; instead echo them as
8067 characters and discard the current line.
8071 \*(BO Ignore end-of-file conditions
8072 .Pf ( Ql control-D )
8073 in compose mode on message input and in interactive command input.
8074 If set an interactive command input session can only be left by
8075 explicitly using one of the commands
8079 and message input in compose mode can only be terminated by entering
8082 on a line by itself or by using the
8084 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ;
8086 overrides a setting of
8091 If this is set to a non-empty string it will specify the users
8093 .Sx "primary system mailbox" ,
8096 and the system-dependent default, and (thus) be used to replace
8099 .Sx "Filename transformations" ;
8102 for more on this topic.
8103 The value supports a subset of transformations itself.
8111 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8114 option for indenting messages,
8115 in place of the normal tabulator character
8117 which is the default.
8118 Be sure to quote the value if it contains spaces or tabs.
8122 \*(BO If set, an empty system (MBOX) mailbox file is not removed.
8123 Note that, in conjunction with
8126 .Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT )
8127 any empty file will be removed unless this variable is set.
8128 This may improve the interoperability with other mail user agents
8129 when using a common folder directory, and prevents malicious users
8130 from creating fake mailboxes in a world-writable spool directory.
8131 \*(ID Only local regular (MBOX) files are covered, Maildir or other
8132 mailbox types will never be removed, even if empty.
8135 .It Va keep-content-length
8136 \*(BO When (editing messages and) writing
8138 mailbox files \*(UA can be told to keep the
8142 header fields that some MUAs generate by setting this variable.
8143 Since \*(UA does neither use nor update these non-standardized header
8144 fields (which in itself shows one of their conceptual problems),
8145 stripping them should increase interoperability in between MUAs that
8146 work with with same mailbox files.
8147 Note that, if this is not set but
8148 .Va writebackedited ,
8149 as below, is, a possibly performed automatic stripping of these header
8150 fields already marks the message as being modified.
8154 \*(BO When a message is saved it is usually discarded from the
8155 originating folder when \*(UA is quit.
8156 This setting causes all saved message to be retained.
8159 .It Va line-editor-disable
8160 \*(BO Turn off any enhanced line editing capabilities (see
8161 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor"
8165 .It Va line-editor-no-defaults
8166 \*(BO\*(OP Do not establish any default key binding.
8169 .It Va mailbox-display
8170 \*(RO The name of the current mailbox
8172 possibly abbreviated for display purposes.
8175 .It Va mailbox-resolved
8176 \*(RO The fully resolved path of the current mailbox.
8179 .It Va mailx-extra-rc
8180 An additional startup file that is loaded as the last of the
8181 .Sx "Resource files" .
8182 Use this file for commands that are not understood by other POSIX
8184 implementations, i.e., mostly anything which is not covered by
8185 .Sx "Initial settings" .
8189 \*(BO When a message is replied to and this variable is set,
8190 it is marked as having been
8193 .Sx "Message states" .
8197 \*(BO If this is set then when opening MBOX mailbox files \*(UA will not
8198 use the tolerant POSIX rules for detecting message boundaries (so-called
8200 lines), as it does by default for compatibility reasons, but the more
8201 strict rules that have been defined in RFC 4155.
8202 When saving to MBOX mailboxes this indicates when so-called
8204 quoting is to be applied \(em note this is never necessary for any
8205 message newly generated by \*(UA, it only applies to messages generated
8206 by buggy or malicious MUAs.
8207 (\*(UA will use a proper
8211 lines cannot be misinterpreted as message boundaries.)
8213 This should not be set normally, but may be handy when \*(UA complains
8214 about having seen invalid
8216 lines when opening a MBOX: in this case temporarily setting this
8217 variable, re-opening the mailbox in question, unsetting this variable
8218 again and then invoking
8219 .Ql copy * SOME-FILE
8220 will perform proper, POSIX-compliant
8222 quoting for all detected messages, resulting in a valid MBOX mailbox.
8226 \*(BO Internal development variable.
8229 .It Va message-id-disable
8230 \*(BO By setting this variable the generation of
8232 can be completely suppressed, effectively leaving this task up to the
8234 (Mail-Transfer-Agent) or the SMTP server.
8235 (According to RFC 5321 a SMTP server is not required to add this
8236 field by itself, so it should be ensured that it accepts messages without
8238 This variable also affects automatic generation of
8243 .It Va message-inject-head
8244 A string to put at the beginning of each new message.
8245 The escape sequences tabulator
8252 .It Va message-inject-tail
8253 A string to put at the end of each new message.
8254 The escape sequences tabulator
8262 \*(BO Usually, when an
8264 expansion contains the sender, the sender is removed from the expansion.
8265 Setting this option suppresses these removals.
8270 option to be passed through to the
8272 (Mail-Transfer-Agent); though most of the modern MTAs no longer document
8273 this flag, no MTA is known which does not support it (for historical
8277 .It Va mime-allow-text-controls
8278 \*(BO When sending messages, each part of the message is MIME-inspected
8279 in order to classify the
8282 .Ql Content-Transfer-Encoding:
8285 that is required to send this part over mail transport, i.e.,
8286 a computation rather similar to what the
8288 command produces when used with the
8292 This classification however treats text files which are encoded in
8293 UTF-16 (seen for HTML files) and similar character sets as binary
8294 octet-streams, forcefully changing any
8299 .Ql application/octet-stream :
8300 If that actually happens a yet unset charset MIME parameter is set to
8302 effectively making it impossible for the receiving MUA to automatically
8303 interpret the contents of the part.
8305 If this variable is set, and the data was unambiguously identified as
8306 text data at first glance (by a
8310 file extension), then the original
8312 will not be overwritten.
8315 .It Va mime-alternative-favour-rich
8316 \*(BO If this variable is set then rich MIME alternative parts (e.g.,
8317 HTML) will be preferred in favour of included plain text versions when
8318 displaying messages, provided that a handler exists which produces
8319 output that can be (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
8320 (E.g., at the time of this writing some newsletters ship their full
8321 content only in the rich HTML part, whereas the plain text part only
8322 contains topic subjects.)
8325 .It Va mime-counter-evidence
8328 field is used to decide how to handle MIME parts.
8329 Some MUAs however do not use
8331 or a similar mechanism to correctly classify content, but simply specify
8332 .Ql application/octet-stream ,
8333 even for plain text attachments like
8335 If this variable is set then \*(UA will try to classify such MIME
8336 message parts on its own, if possible, for example via a possibly
8337 existing attachment filename.
8338 A non-empty value may also be given, in which case a number is expected,
8339 actually a carrier of bits.
8340 Creating the bit-carrying number is a simple addition:
8341 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8342 ? !echo Value should be set to $((2 + 4 + 8))
8343 Value should be set to 14
8346 .Bl -bullet -compact
8348 If bit two is set (2) then the detected
8350 content-type will be carried along with the message and be used for
8352 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8353 is responsible for the MIME part, shall that question arise;
8354 when displaying such a MIME part the part-info will indicate the
8355 overridden content-type by showing a plus sign
8358 If bit three is set (4) then the counter-evidence is always produced
8359 and a positive result will be used as the MIME type, even forcefully
8360 overriding the parts given MIME type.
8362 If bit four is set (8) then as a last resort the actual content of
8363 .Ql application/octet-stream
8364 parts will be inspected, so that data which looks like plain text can be
8369 .It Va mimetypes-load-control
8370 Can be used to control which of the
8372 databases are loaded by \*(UA, as furtherly described in the section
8373 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
8376 is part of the option value, then the user's personal
8378 file will be loaded (if it exists); likewise the letter
8380 controls loading of the system wide
8381 .Pa /etc/mime.types ;
8382 directives found in the user file take precedence, letter matching is
8384 If this variable is not set \*(UA will try to load both files.
8385 Incorporation of the \*(UA-builtin MIME types cannot be suppressed,
8386 but they will be matched last (the order can be listed via
8389 More sources can be specified by using a different syntax: if the
8390 value string contains an equals sign
8392 then it is instead parsed as a comma-separated list of the described
8395 pairs; the given filenames will be expanded and loaded, and their
8396 content may use the extended syntax that is described in the section
8397 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
8398 Directives found in such files always take precedence (are prepended to
8399 the MIME type cache).
8404 To choose an alternate Mail-Transfer-Agent, set this option to either
8405 the full pathname of an executable (optionally prefixed with a
8407 protocol indicator), or \*(OPally a SMTP protocol URL, e.g., \*(IN
8409 .Dl smtps?://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8412 .Ql [smtp://]server[:port] . )
8413 The default has been chosen at compie time.
8414 All supported data transfers are executed in child processes, which
8415 run asynchronously, and without supervision, unless either the
8420 If such a child receives a TERM signal, it will abort and
8427 For a file-based MTA it may be necessary to set
8429 in in order to choose the right target of a modern
8432 It will be passed command line arguments from several possible sources:
8435 if set, from the command line if given and the variable
8438 Argument processing of the MTA will be terminated with a
8443 The otherwise occurring implicit usage of the following MTA command
8444 line arguments can be disabled by setting the boolean variable
8445 .Va mta-no-default-arguments
8446 (which will also disable passing
8450 (for not treating a line with only a dot
8452 character as the end of input),
8460 variable is set); in conjunction with the
8462 command line option \*(UA will also (not) pass
8468 \*(OP \*(UA can send mail over SMTP network connections to a single
8469 defined SMTP smarthost, the access URL of which has to be assigned to
8471 To use this mode it is helpful to read
8472 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
8473 It may be necessary to set the
8475 variable in order to use a specific combination of
8480 with some mail providers.
8483 .Bl -bullet -compact
8485 The plain SMTP protocol (RFC 5321) that normally lives on the
8486 server port 25 and requires setting the
8487 .Va smtp-use-starttls
8488 variable to enter a SSL/TLS encrypted session state.
8489 Assign a value like \*(IN
8490 .Ql smtp://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8492 .Ql smtp://server[:port] )
8493 to choose this protocol.
8495 The so-called SMTPS which is supposed to live on server port 465
8496 and is automatically SSL/TLS secured.
8497 Unfortunately it never became a standardized protocol and may thus not
8498 be supported by your hosts network service database
8499 \(en in fact the port number has already been reassigned to other
8502 SMTPS is nonetheless a commonly offered protocol and thus can be
8503 chosen by assigning a value like \*(IN
8504 .Ql smtps://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8506 .Ql smtps://server[:port] ) ;
8507 due to the mentioned problems it is usually necessary to explicitly
8512 Finally there is the SUBMISSION protocol (RFC 6409), which usually
8513 lives on server port 587 and is practically identically to the SMTP
8514 protocol from \*(UA's point of view beside that; it requires setting the
8515 .Va smtp-use-starttls
8516 variable to enter a SSL/TLS secured session state.
8517 Assign a value like \*(IN
8518 .Ql submission://[user[:password]@]server[:port]
8520 .Ql submission://server[:port] ) .
8525 .It Va mta-arguments
8526 Arguments to pass through to a file-based
8528 can be given via this variable, which is parsed according to
8529 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting"
8530 into an array of arguments, and which will be joined onto MTA options
8531 from other sources, and then passed individually to the MTA:
8533 .Dl wysh set mta-arguments='-t -X \&"/tmp/my log\&"'
8536 .It Va mta-no-default-arguments
8537 \*(BO Unless this variable is set \*(UA will pass some well known
8538 standard command line options to a file-based
8540 (Mail-Transfer-Agent), see there for more.
8544 Many systems use a so-called
8546 environment to ensure compatibility with
8548 This works by inspecting the name that was used to invoke the mail
8550 If this variable is set then the mailwrapper (the program that is
8551 actually executed when calling the file-based
8553 will treat its contents as that name.
8558 .It Va netrc-lookup-USER@HOST , netrc-lookup-HOST , netrc-lookup
8559 \*(BO\*(IN\*(OP Used to control usage of the users
8561 file for lookup of account credentials, as documented in the section
8562 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup"
8566 .Sx "The .netrc file"
8567 documents the file format.
8579 then \*(UA will read the output of a shell pipe instead of the users
8581 file if this variable is set (to the desired shell command).
8582 This can be used to, e.g., store
8586 .Dl set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
8590 If this variable has the value
8592 newly created local folders will be in Maildir format.
8596 Checks for new mail in the current folder each time the prompt is shown.
8597 A Maildir folder must be re-scanned to determine if new mail has arrived.
8598 If this variable is set to the special value
8600 then a Maildir folder will not be rescanned completely, but only
8601 timestamp changes are detected.
8605 .It Va on-compose-splice-shell , on-compose-splice
8606 These hooks run once the normal compose mode is finished, but before the
8607 .Va on-compose-leave
8608 macro hook is called, the
8611 Both hooks will be executed in a subprocess, with their input and output
8612 connected to \*(UA such that they can act as if they would be an
8614 The difference in between them is that the former is a
8616 command, whereas the latter is a normal \*(UA macro, but which is
8617 restricted to a small set of commands (the
8621 will indicate said capability), just enough for the purpose of
8622 controlling the real \*(UA instance sufficiently.
8624 are enabled for these hooks (in the parent process), causing any setting
8625 to be forgotten after the message has been sent.
8627 During execution of these hooks \*(UA will temporarily forget whether it
8628 has been started in interactive mode, (a restricted set of)
8629 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
8630 will always be available, and for guaranteed reproduceabilities sake
8632 will be set to its default.
8633 The compose mode command
8635 has been especially designed for scriptability (via these hooks).
8636 The first line the hook will read on its standard input is the protocol
8637 version of said command escape, currently
8639 backward incompatible protocol changes are to be expected in the
8640 future, and it is advisable to make use of the protocol version.
8641 Care must be taken to avoid deadlocks because of unexpected control
8642 flow: if both involved processes wait for more input to happen at the
8643 same time, or one doesn't expect more input but the other is stuck
8644 waiting for consumption of its output.
8645 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8646 wysh set on-compose-splice-shell=$'\e
8648 printf "hello $version! Headers: ";\e
8649 echo \e'~^header list\e';\e
8650 read status result;\e
8651 echo "status=$status result=$result";\e
8654 set on-compose-splice=ocsm
8657 echo Splice protocol version is $ver
8658 echo '~^h l'; read hl; vput vexpr es substr "${hl}" 0 1
8660 echoerr 'Cannot read header list'; echo '~x'
8662 if [ "$hl" !@ ' cc' ]
8663 echo '~^h i cc Diet is your <mirr.or>'; read es;\e
8664 vput vexpr es substr "${es}" 0 1
8666 echoerr 'Cannot insert Cc: header'; echo '~x'
8674 .It Va on-compose-enter , on-compose-leave
8675 Macro hooks which will be executed before compose mode is entered, and
8676 after composing has been finished (but before the
8678 is injected, etc.), respectively.
8680 are enabled for these hooks, causing any setting to be forgotten after
8681 the message has been sent.
8682 The following (read-only) variables will be set temporarily during
8683 execution of the macros:
8685 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Va compose_subject"
8688 .It Va compose-sender
8690 .It Va compose-to , compose-cc , compose-bcc
8691 The list of receiver addresses as a space-separated list.
8692 .It Va compose-subject
8698 \*(BO Causes the filename given in the
8701 and the sender-based filenames for the
8705 commands to be interpreted relative to the directory given in the
8707 variable rather than to the current directory,
8708 unless it is set to an absolute pathname.
8712 \*(BO If set, each message feed through the command given for
8714 is followed by a formfeed character
8718 .It Va password-USER@HOST , password-HOST , password
8719 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a password, which is used in case none has
8720 been given in the protocol and account-specific URL;
8721 as a last resort \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal if
8722 the authentication method requires a password.
8723 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
8724 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
8726 .It Va password-USER@HOST
8727 \*(OU (see the chain above for \*(IN)
8728 Set the password for
8732 If no such variable is defined for a host,
8733 the user will be asked for a password on standard input.
8734 Specifying passwords in a startup file is generally a security risk;
8735 the file should be readable by the invoking user only.
8739 \*(BO Send messages to the
8741 command without performing MIME and character set conversions.
8745 .It Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8746 When a MIME message part of type
8748 (case-insensitive) is displayed or quoted,
8749 its text is filtered through the value of this variable interpreted as
8753 forces interpretation of the message part as plain text, e.g.,
8754 .Ql set pipe-application/xml=@
8755 will henceforth display XML
8757 (The same could also be achieved by adding a MIME type marker with the
8760 And \*(OPally MIME type handlers may be defined via
8761 .Sx "The Mailcap files"
8762 \(em corresponding flag strings are shown in parenthesis below.)
8767 can in fact be used to adjust usage and behaviour of a following shell
8768 command specification by appending trigger characters to it, e.g., the
8769 following hypothetical command specification could be used:
8770 .Bd -literal -offset indent
8771 set pipe-X/Y='@*!++=@vim ${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}'
8775 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ql __"
8777 Simply by using the special
8779 prefix the MIME type (shell command) handler will only be invoked to
8780 display or convert the MIME part if the message is addressed directly
8781 and alone by itself.
8782 Use this trigger to disable this and always invoke the handler
8783 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-always ) .
8786 If set the handler will not be invoked when a message is to be quoted,
8787 but only when it will be displayed
8788 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-noquote ) .
8791 The command will be run asynchronously, i.e., without blocking \*(UA,
8792 which may be a handy way to display a, e.g., PDF file while also
8793 continuing to read the mail message
8794 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-async ) .
8795 Asynchronous execution implies
8799 The command must be run on an interactive terminal, \*(UA will
8800 temporarily release the terminal to it
8801 .Pf ( Cd needsterminal ) .
8802 This flag is mutual exclusive with
8804 will only be used in interactive mode and implies
8808 Request creation of a zero-sized temporary file, the absolute pathname
8809 of which will be made accessible via the environment variable
8810 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8811 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ) .
8812 If this trigger is given twice then the file will be unlinked
8813 automatically by \*(UA when the command loop is entered again at latest
8814 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink ) .
8815 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
8818 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
8819 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
8820 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8821 .Pf ( Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill ) ,
8822 the creation of which is implied; note however that in order to cause
8823 deletion of the temporary file you still have to use two plus signs
8828 To avoid ambiguities with normal shell command content you can use
8829 another commercial at to forcefully terminate interpretation of
8830 remaining characters.
8831 (Any character not in this list will have the same effect.)
8835 Some information about the MIME part to be displayed is embedded into
8836 the environment of the shell command:
8839 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ev _AIL__ILENAME__ENERATED"
8841 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT
8842 The MIME content-type of the part, if known, the empty string otherwise.
8845 .It Ev MAILX_CONTENT_EVIDENCE
8847 .Va mime-counter-evidence
8848 includes the carry-around-bit (2), then this will be set to the detected
8849 MIME content-type; not only then identical to
8850 .Ev \&\&MAILX_CONTENT
8854 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME
8855 The filename, if any is set, the empty string otherwise.
8858 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
8862 .It Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY
8863 If temporary file creation has been requested through the command prefix
8864 this variable will be set and contain the absolute pathname of the
8870 .It Va pipe-EXTENSION
8871 This is identical to
8872 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE
8875 (normalized to lowercase using character mappings of the ASCII charset)
8876 names a file extension, e.g.,
8878 Handlers registered using this method take precedence.
8881 .It Va pop3-auth-USER@HOST , pop3-auth-HOST , pop3-auth
8882 \*(OP\*(IN Variable chain that sets the POP3 authentication method.
8883 The only possible value as of now is
8885 which is thus the default.
8888 .Mx Va pop3-bulk-load
8889 .It Va pop3-bulk-load-USER@HOST , pop3-bulk-load-HOST , pop3-bulk-load
8890 \*(BO\*(OP When accessing a POP3 server \*(UA loads the headers of
8891 the messages, and only requests the message bodies on user request.
8892 For the POP3 protocol this means that the message headers will be
8894 If this variable is set then \*(UA will download only complete messages
8895 from the given POP3 server(s) instead.
8897 .Mx Va pop3-keepalive
8898 .It Va pop3-keepalive-USER@HOST , pop3-keepalive-HOST , pop3-keepalive
8899 \*(OP POP3 servers close the connection after a period of inactivity;
8900 the standard requires this to be at least 10 minutes,
8901 but practical experience may vary.
8902 Setting this variable to a numeric value greater than
8906 command to be sent each value seconds if no other operation is performed.
8909 .It Va pop3-no-apop-USER@HOST , pop3-no-apop-HOST , pop3-no-apop
8910 \*(BO\*(OP Unless this variable is set the
8912 authentication method will be used when connecting to a POP3 server that
8916 is that the password is not sent in clear text over the wire and that
8917 only a single packet is sent for the user/password tuple.
8919 .Va pop3-no-apop-HOST
8922 .Mx Va pop3-use-starttls
8923 .It Va pop3-use-starttls-USER@HOST , pop3-use-starttls-HOST , pop3-use-starttls
8924 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
8926 command to make an unencrypted POP3 session SSL/TLS encrypted.
8927 This functionality is not supported by all servers,
8928 and is not used if the session is already encrypted by the POP3S method.
8930 .Va pop3-use-starttls-HOST
8935 \*(BO This flag enables POSIX mode, which changes behaviour of \*(UA
8936 where that deviates from standardized behaviour.
8937 It will be set implicitly before the
8938 .Sx "Resource files"
8939 are loaded if the environment variable
8941 is set, and adjusting any of those two will be reflected by the other
8945 .It Va print-alternatives
8946 \*(BO When a MIME message part of type
8947 .Ql multipart/alternative
8948 is displayed and it contains a subpart of type
8950 other parts are normally discarded.
8951 Setting this variable causes all subparts to be displayed,
8952 just as if the surrounding part was of type
8953 .Ql multipart/mixed .
8957 The string used as a prompt in interactive mode.
8958 Whenever the variable is evaluated the value is expanded as via
8959 dollar-single-quote expansion (see
8960 .Sx "Shell-style argument quoting" ) .
8961 This (post-assignment, i.e., second) expansion can be used to embed
8962 status information, for example
8967 .Va mailbox-display .
8969 In order to embed characters which should not be counted when
8970 calculating the visual width of the resulting string, enclose the
8971 characters of interest in a pair of reverse solidus escaped brackets:
8973 a slot for coloured prompts is also available with the \*(OPal command
8975 Prompting may be prevented by setting this to the null string
8977 .Ql set noprompt ) .
8981 This string is used for secondary prompts, but is otherwise identical to
8988 \*(BO Suppresses the printing of the version when first invoked.
8992 If set, \*(UA starts a replying message with the original message
8993 prefixed by the value of the variable
8995 Normally, a heading consisting of
8996 .Dq Fromheaderfield wrote:
8997 is put before the quotation.
9002 variable, this heading is omitted.
9005 is assigned, only the headers selected by the
9008 selection are put above the message body,
9011 acts like an automatic
9013 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
9017 is assigned, all headers are put above the message body and all MIME
9018 parts are included, making
9020 act like an automatic
9023 .Va quote-as-attachment .
9026 .It Va quote-as-attachment
9027 \*(BO Add the original message in its entirety as a
9029 MIME attachment when replying to a message.
9030 Note this works regardless of the setting of
9035 \*(OP Can be set in addition to
9037 Setting this turns on a more fancy quotation algorithm in that leading
9038 quotation characters are compressed and overlong lines are folded.
9040 can be set to either one or two (space separated) numeric values,
9041 which are interpreted as the maximum (goal) and the minimum line length,
9042 respectively, in a spirit rather equal to the
9044 program, but line-, not paragraph-based.
9045 If not set explicitly the minimum will reflect the goal algorithmically.
9046 The goal cannot be smaller than the length of
9048 plus some additional pad.
9049 Necessary adjustments take place silently.
9052 .It Va r-option-implicit
9053 \*(BO Setting this option evaluates the contents of
9055 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9057 and passes the results onto the used (file-based) MTA as described for the
9059 option (empty argument case).
9062 .It Va recipients-in-cc
9063 \*(BO On group replies, specify only the sender of the original mail in
9065 and mention the other recipients in the secondary
9067 By default all recipients of the original mail will be addressed via
9072 If defined, gives the pathname of the folder used to record all outgoing
9074 If not defined, then outgoing mail is not saved.
9075 When saving to this folder fails the message is not sent,
9076 but instead saved to
9080 .It Va record-resent
9081 \*(BO If both this variable and the
9088 commands save messages to the
9090 folder as it is normally only done for newly composed messages.
9093 .It Va reply-in-same-charset
9094 \*(BO If this variable is set \*(UA first tries to use the same
9095 character set of the original message for replies.
9096 If this fails, the mechanism described in
9097 .Sx "Character sets"
9098 is evaluated as usual.
9101 .It Va reply-strings
9102 Can be set to a comma-separated list of (case-insensitive according to
9103 ASCII rules) strings which shall be recognized in addition to the
9106 reply message indicators \(en builtin are
9108 which is mandated by RFC 5322, as well as the german
9113 which often has been seen in the wild;
9114 I.e., the separating colon has to be specified explicitly.
9118 A list of addresses to put into the
9120 field of the message header.
9121 Members of this list are handled as if they were in the
9126 .It Va reply-to-honour
9129 header is honoured when replying to a message via
9133 This is a quadoption; if set without a value it defaults to
9137 .It Va rfc822-body-from_
9138 \*(BO This variable can be used to force displaying a so-called
9140 line for messages that are embedded into an envelope mail via the
9142 MIME mechanism, for more visual convenience.
9146 \*(BO Enable saving of (partial) messages in
9148 upon interrupt or delivery error.
9152 The number of lines that represents a
9161 line display and scrolling via
9163 If this variable is not set \*(UA falls back to a calculation based upon
9164 the detected terminal window size and the baud rate: the faster the
9165 terminal, the more will be shown.
9166 Overall screen dimensions and pager usage is influenced by the
9167 environment variables
9175 .It Va searchheaders
9176 \*(BO Expand message-list specifiers in the form
9178 to all messages containing the substring
9182 The string search is case insensitive.
9186 \*(OP A comma-separated list of character set names that can be used in
9187 outgoing internet mail.
9188 The value of the variable
9190 is automatically appended to this list of character sets.
9191 If no character set conversion capabilities are compiled into \*(UA then
9192 the only supported charset is
9195 .Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
9196 and refer to the section
9197 .Sx "Character sets"
9198 for the complete picture of character set conversion in \*(UA.
9201 .It Va sendcharsets-else-ttycharset
9202 \*(BO\*(OP If this variable is set, but
9204 is not, then \*(UA acts as if
9206 had been set to the value of the variable
9208 In effect this combination passes through the message data in the
9209 character set of the current locale (given that
9211 has not been set manually), i.e., without converting it to the
9213 fallback character set.
9214 Thus, mail message text will be in ISO-8859-1 encoding when send from
9215 within a ISO-8859-1 locale, and in UTF-8 encoding when send from within
9217 If no character set conversion capabilities are available in \*(UA then
9218 the only supported character set is
9223 An address that is put into the
9225 field of outgoing messages, quoting RFC 5322: the mailbox of the agent
9226 responsible for the actual transmission of the message.
9227 This field should normally not be used unless the
9229 field contains more than one address, on which case it is required.
9232 address is handled as if it were in the
9236 .Va r-option-implicit .
9240 \*(OB Predecessor of
9244 .It Va sendmail-arguments
9245 \*(OB Predecessor of
9249 .It Va sendmail-no-default-arguments
9250 \*(OB\*(BO Predecessor of
9251 .Va mta-no-default-arguments .
9254 .It Va sendmail-progname
9255 \*(OB Predecessor of
9260 \*(BO When sending a message wait until the
9262 (including the builtin SMTP one) exits before accepting further commands.
9264 with this variable set errors reported by the MTA will be recognizable!
9265 If the MTA returns a non-zero exit status,
9266 the exit status of \*(UA will also be non-zero.
9270 \*(BO This setting causes \*(UA to start at the last message
9271 instead of the first one when opening a mail folder.
9275 \*(BO Causes \*(UA to use the sender's real name instead of the plain
9276 address in the header field summary and in message specifications.
9280 \*(BO Causes the recipient of the message to be shown in the header
9281 summary if the message was sent by the user.
9285 The string to expand
9288 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
9292 The string to expand
9295 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" ) .
9299 Must correspond to the name of a readable file if set.
9300 The file's content is then appended to each singlepart message
9301 and to the first part of each multipart message.
9302 Be warned that there is no possibility to edit the signature for an
9306 .It Va skipemptybody
9307 \*(BO If an outgoing message does not contain any text in its first or
9308 only message part, do not send it but discard it silently (see also the
9314 .It Va smime-ca-dir , smime-ca-file
9315 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
9316 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
9317 purpose of verification of S/MIME signed messages.
9318 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
9319 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
9320 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
9321 be explicitly turned off by setting
9322 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
9323 and further fine-tuning is possible via
9324 .Va smime-ca-flags .
9327 .It Va smime-ca-flags
9328 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
9329 storage, and the certificate verification that is used.
9330 The actual values and their meanings are documented for
9334 .It Va smime-ca-no-defaults
9335 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
9336 used to SSL/TLS library to verify S/MIME signed messages.
9339 .It Va smime-cipher-USER@HOST , smime-cipher
9340 \*(OP Specifies the cipher to use when generating S/MIME encrypted
9341 messages (for the specified account).
9342 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
9345 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
9353 (DES EDE3 CBC, 168 bits; default if
9355 is not available) and
9359 The actually available cipher algorithms depend on the cryptographic
9360 library that \*(UA uses.
9361 \*(OP Support for more cipher algorithms may be available through
9362 dynamic loading via, e.g.,
9363 .Xr EVP_get_cipherbyname 3
9364 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
9367 .It Va smime-crl-dir
9368 \*(OP Specifies a directory that contains files with CRLs in PEM format
9369 to use when verifying S/MIME messages.
9372 .It Va smime-crl-file
9373 \*(OP Specifies a file that contains a CRL in PEM format to use when
9374 verifying S/MIME messages.
9377 .It Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST
9378 \*(OP If this variable is set, messages send to the given receiver are
9379 encrypted before sending.
9380 The value of the variable must be set to the name of a file that
9381 contains a certificate in PEM format.
9383 If a message is sent to multiple recipients,
9384 each of them for whom a corresponding variable is set will receive an
9385 individually encrypted message;
9386 other recipients will continue to receive the message in plain text
9388 .Va smime-force-encryption
9390 It is recommended to sign encrypted messages, i.e., to also set the
9395 .It Va smime-force-encryption
9396 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to refuse sending unencrypted messages.
9400 \*(BO\*(OP S/MIME sign outgoing messages with the user's private key
9401 and include the user's certificate as a MIME attachment.
9402 Signing a message enables a recipient to verify that the sender used
9403 a valid certificate,
9404 that the email addresses in the certificate match those in the message
9405 header and that the message content has not been altered.
9406 It does not change the message text,
9407 and people will be able to read the message as usual.
9409 .Va smime-sign-cert , smime-sign-include-certs
9411 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
9413 .Mx Va smime-sign-cert
9414 .It Va smime-sign-cert-USER@HOST , smime-sign-cert
9415 \*(OP Points to a file in PEM format.
9416 For the purpose of signing and decryption this file needs to contain the
9417 user's private key, followed by his certificate.
9421 is always derived from the value of
9423 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9425 For the purpose of encryption the recipient's public encryption key
9426 (certificate) is expected; the command
9428 can be used to save certificates of signed messages (the section
9429 .Sx "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
9430 gives some details).
9431 This mode of operation is usually driven by the specialized form.
9433 When decrypting messages the account is derived from the recipient
9438 of the message, which are searched for addresses for which such
9440 \*(UA always uses the first address that matches,
9441 so if the same message is sent to more than one of the user's addresses
9442 using different encryption keys, decryption might fail.
9444 For signing and decryption purposes it is possible to use encrypted
9445 keys, and the pseudo-host(s)
9446 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-key
9449 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-cert-cert
9450 for the certificate stored in the same file)
9451 will be used for performing any necessary password lookup,
9452 therefore the lookup can be automatized via the mechanisms described in
9453 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
9454 For example, the hypothetical address
9456 could be driven with a private key / certificate pair path defined in
9457 .Va \&\&smime-sign-cert-bob@exam.ple ,
9458 and needed passwords would then be looked up via the pseudo hosts
9459 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-key
9461 .Ql bob@exam.ple.smime-cert-cert ) .
9462 To include intermediate certificates, use
9463 .Va smime-sign-include-certs .
9465 .Mx Va smime-sign-include-certs
9466 .It Va smime-sign-include-certs-USER@HOST , smime-sign-include-certs
9467 \*(OP If used, this is supposed to a consist of a comma-separated list
9468 of files, each of which containing a single certificate in PEM format to
9469 be included in the S/MIME message in addition to the
9472 This can be used to include intermediate certificates of the certificate
9473 authority, in order to allow the receiver's S/MIME implementation to
9474 perform a verification of the entire certificate chain, starting from
9475 a local root certificate, over the intermediate certificates, down to the
9476 .Va smime-sign-cert .
9477 Even though top level certificates may also be included in the chain,
9478 they won't be used for the verification on the receiver's side.
9480 For the purpose of the mechanisms involved here,
9482 refers to the content of the internal variable
9484 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9487 .Ql USER@HOST.smime-include-certs
9488 will be used for performing password lookups for these certificates,
9489 shall they have been given one, therefore the lookup can be automatized
9490 via the mechanisms described in
9491 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" .
9493 .Mx Va smime-sign-message-digest
9494 .It Va smime-sign-message-digest-USER@HOST , smime-sign-message-digest
9495 \*(OP Specifies the message digest to use when signing S/MIME messages.
9496 RFC 5751 mandates a default of
9498 Possible values are (case-insensitive and) in decreasing cipher strength:
9506 The actually available message digest algorithms depend on the
9507 cryptographic library that \*(UA uses.
9508 \*(OP Support for more message digest algorithms may be available
9509 through dynamic loading via, e.g.,
9510 .Xr EVP_get_digestbyname 3
9511 (OpenSSL) if \*(UA has been compiled to support this.
9512 Remember that for this
9514 refers to the variable
9516 (or, if that contains multiple addresses,
9521 \*(OB\*(OP To use the builtin SMTP transport, specify a SMTP URL in
9523 \*(ID For compatibility reasons a set
9525 is used in preference of
9529 .It Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST , smtp-auth-HOST , smtp-auth
9530 \*(OP Variable chain that controls the SMTP
9532 authentication method, possible values are
9538 as well as the \*(OPal methods
9544 method does not need any user credentials,
9546 requires a user name and all other methods require a user name and
9554 .Va smtp-auth-password
9556 .Va smtp-auth-user ) .
9561 .Va smtp-auth-USER@HOST :
9562 may override dependent on sender address in the variable
9565 .It Va smtp-auth-password
9566 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback password for SMTP authentication.
9567 If the authentication method requires a password, but neither
9568 .Va smtp-auth-password
9570 .Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
9572 \*(UA will ask for a password on the user's terminal.
9574 .It Va smtp-auth-password-USER@HOST
9576 .Va smtp-auth-password
9577 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
9580 .It Va smtp-auth-user
9581 \*(OP\*(OU Sets the global fallback user name for SMTP authentication.
9582 If the authentication method requires a user name, but neither
9585 .Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
9587 \*(UA will ask for a user name on the user's terminal.
9589 .It Va smtp-auth-user-USER@HOST
9592 for specific values of sender addresses, dependent upon the variable
9596 .It Va smtp-hostname
9597 \*(OP\*(IN Normally \*(UA uses the variable
9599 to derive the necessary
9601 information in order to issue a
9608 can be used to use the
9610 from the SMTP account
9617 from the content of this variable (or, if that is the empty string,
9619 or the local hostname as a last resort).
9620 This often allows using an address that is itself valid but hosted by
9621 a provider other than which (in
9623 is about to send the message.
9624 Setting this variable also influences generated
9630 .Mx Va smtp-use-starttls
9631 .It Va smtp-use-starttls-USER@HOST , smtp-use-starttls-HOST , smtp-use-starttls
9632 \*(BO\*(OP Causes \*(UA to issue a
9634 command to make an SMTP
9636 session SSL/TLS encrypted, i.e., to enable transport layer security.
9640 .It Va spam-interface
9641 \*(OP In order to use any of the spam-related commands (like, e.g.,
9643 the desired spam interface must be defined by setting this variable.
9644 Please refer to the manual section
9646 for the complete picture of spam handling in \*(UA.
9647 All or none of the following interfaces may be available:
9649 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ql _ilte_"
9655 .Pf ( Lk http://spamassassin.apache.org SpamAssassin )
9657 Different to the generic filter interface \*(UA will automatically add
9658 the correct arguments for a given command and has the necessary
9659 knowledge to parse the program's output.
9662 will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if
9667 Shall it be necessary to define a specific connection type (rather than
9668 using a configuration file for that), the variable
9670 can be used as in, e.g.,
9671 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
9672 It is also possible to specify a per-user configuration via
9674 Note that this interface does not inspect the
9676 flag of a message for the command
9680 generic spam filter support via freely configurable hooks.
9681 This interface is meant for programs like
9683 and requires according behaviour in respect to the hooks' exit
9684 status for at least the command
9687 meaning a message is spam,
9691 for unsure and any other return value indicating a hard error);
9692 since the hooks can include shell code snippets diverting behaviour
9693 can be intercepted as necessary.
9695 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
9698 .Va spamfilter-spam ;
9701 contains examples for some programs.
9702 The process environment of the hooks will have the variable
9703 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_GENERATED
9705 Note that spam score support for
9707 is not supported unless the \*(OPtional regular expression support is
9709 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
9716 \*(OP Messages that exceed this size will not be passed through to the
9718 .Va spam-interface .
9719 If unset or 0, the default of 420000 bytes is used.
9722 .It Va spamc-command
9723 \*(OP The path to the
9727 .Va spam-interface .
9728 Note that the path is not expanded, but used
9730 A fallback path will have been compiled into the \*(UA binary if the
9731 executable had been found during compilation.
9734 .It Va spamc-arguments
9735 \*(OP Even though \*(UA deals with most arguments for the
9738 automatically, it may at least sometimes be desirable to specify
9739 connection-related ones via this variable, e.g.,
9740 .Ql -d server.example.com -p 783 .
9744 \*(OP Specify a username for per-user configuration files for the
9746 .Va spam-interface .
9747 If this is set to the empty string then \*(UA will use the name of the
9756 .It Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , \
9757 spamfilter-nospam , spamfilter-rate , spamfilter-spam
9758 \*(OP Command and argument hooks for the
9760 .Va spam-interface .
9763 contains examples for some programs.
9766 .It Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore
9767 \*(OP Because of the generic nature of the
9770 spam scores are not supported for it by default, but if the \*(OPnal
9771 regular expression support is available then setting this variable can
9772 be used to overcome this restriction.
9773 It is interpreted as follows: first a number (digits) is parsed that
9774 must be followed by a semicolon
9776 and an extended regular expression.
9777 Then the latter is used to parse the first output line of the
9779 hook, and, in case the evaluation is successful, the group that has been
9780 specified via the number is interpreted as a floating point scan score.
9784 .It Va ssl-ca-dir , ssl-ca-file
9785 \*(OP Specify the location of trusted CA certificates in PEM (Privacy
9786 Enhanced Mail) format as a directory and a file, respectively, for the
9787 purpose of verification of SSL/TLS server certificates.
9788 It is possible to set both, the file will be loaded immediately, the
9789 directory will be searched whenever no match has yet been found.
9790 The set of CA certificates which are built into the SSL/TLS library can
9791 be explicitly turned off by setting
9792 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ,
9793 and further fine-tuning is possible via
9796 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
9797 for more information.
9802 \*(OP Can be used to fine-tune behaviour of the X509 CA certificate
9803 storage, and the certificate verification that is used (also see
9805 The value is expected to consist of a comma-separated list of
9806 configuration directives, with any intervening whitespace being ignored.
9807 The directives directly map to flags that can be passed to
9808 .Xr X509_STORE_set_flags 3 ,
9809 which are usually defined in a file
9810 .Pa openssl/x509_vfy.h ,
9811 and the availability of which depends on the used SSL/TLS library
9812 version: a directive without mapping is ignored (error log subject to
9814 Directives currently understood (case-insensitively) include:
9817 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Cd BaNg"
9818 .It Cd no-alt-chains
9819 If the initial chain is not trusted, do not attempt to build an
9821 Setting this flag will make OpenSSL certificate verification match that
9822 of older OpenSSL versions, before automatic building and checking of
9823 alternative chains has been implemented; also see
9825 .It Cd no-check-time
9826 Do not check certificate/CRL validity against current time.
9827 .It Cd partial-chain
9828 By default partial, incomplete chains which cannot be verified up to the
9829 chain top, a self-signed root certificate, will not verify.
9830 With this flag set, a chain succeeds to verify if at least one signing
9831 certificate of the chain is in any of the configured trusted stores of
9833 The OpenSSL manual page
9834 .Xr SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations 3
9835 gives some advise how to manage your own trusted store of CA certificates.
9837 Disable workarounds for broken certificates.
9838 .It Cd trusted-first
9839 Try building a chain using issuers in the trusted store first to avoid
9840 problems with server-sent legacy intermediate certificates.
9841 Newer versions of OpenSSL support alternative chain checking and enable
9842 it by default, resulting in the same behaviour; also see
9848 .It Va ssl-ca-no-defaults
9849 \*(BO\*(OP Do not load the default CA locations that are built into the
9850 used to SSL/TLS library to verify SSL/TLS server certificates.
9853 .It Va ssl-cert-USER@HOST , ssl-cert-HOST , ssl-cert
9854 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for a SSL/TLS client
9855 certificate required by some servers.
9856 This is a direct interface to the
9860 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
9862 .Mx Va ssl-cipher-list
9863 .It Va ssl-cipher-list-USER@HOST , ssl-cipher-list-HOST , ssl-cipher-list
9864 \*(OP Specifies a list of ciphers for SSL/TLS connections.
9865 This is a direct interface to the
9869 function of the OpenSSL library, if available; see
9871 for more information.
9872 By default \*(UA does not set a list of ciphers, in effect using a
9874 specific cipher (protocol standards ship with a list of acceptable
9875 ciphers), possibly cramped to what the actually used SSL/TLS library
9876 supports \(en the manual section
9877 .Sx "An example configuration"
9878 also contains a SSL/TLS use case.
9881 .It Va ssl-config-file
9882 \*(OP If this variable is set \*(UA will call
9883 .Xr CONF_modules_load_file 3
9884 to allow OpenSSL to be configured according to the host system wide
9886 If a non-empty value is given then this will be used to specify the
9887 configuration file to be used instead of the global OpenSSL default;
9888 note that in this case it is an error if the file cannot be loaded.
9889 The application name will always be passed as
9894 .It Va ssl-crl-dir , ssl-crl-file
9895 \*(OP Specify a directory / a file, respectively that contains a CRL in
9896 PEM format to use when verifying SSL/TLS server certificates.
9899 .It Va ssl-key-USER@HOST , ssl-key-HOST , ssl-key
9900 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the file name for the private key of
9901 a SSL/TLS client certificate.
9902 If unset, the name of the certificate file is used.
9903 The file is expected to be in PEM format.
9904 This is a direct interface to the
9908 function of the OpenSSL library, if available.
9911 .It Va ssl-method-USER@HOST , ssl-method-HOST , ssl-method
9912 \*(OB\*(OP Please use the newer and more flexible
9914 instead: if both values are set,
9916 will take precedence!
9917 Can be set to the following values, the actually used
9919 specification to which it is mapped is shown in parenthesis:
9921 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.2 ) ,
9923 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1.1 ) ,
9925 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, TLSv1 )
9928 .Pf ( Ql -ALL, SSLv3 ) ;
9933 and thus includes the SSLv3 protocol.
9934 Note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all.
9937 .It Va ssl-protocol-USER@HOST , ssl-protocol-HOST , ssl-protocol
9938 \*(OP Specify the used SSL/TLS protocol.
9939 This is a direct interface to the
9943 function of the OpenSSL library, if available;
9944 otherwise an \*(UA internal parser is used which understands the
9945 following subset of (case-insensitive) command strings:
9951 as well as the special value
9953 Multiple specifications may be given via a comma-separated list which
9954 ignores any whitespace.
9957 plus sign prefix will enable a protocol, a
9959 hyphen-minus prefix will disable it, so that
9961 will enable only the TLSv1.2 protocol.
9963 It depends upon the used TLS/SSL library which protocols are actually
9964 supported and which protocols are used if
9966 is not set, but note that SSLv2 is no longer supported at all and
9968 Especially for older protocols explicitly securing
9970 may be worthwile, see
9971 .Sx "An example configuration" .
9975 \*(OP Gives the pathname to an entropy daemon socket, see
9977 Not all SSL/TLS libraries support this.
9980 .It Va ssl-rand-file
9981 \*(OP Gives the filename to a file with random entropy data, see
9982 .Xr RAND_load_file 3 .
9983 If this variable is not set, or set to the empty string, or if the
9984 .Sx "Filename transformations"
9986 .Xr RAND_file_name 3
9987 will be used to create the filename if, and only if,
9989 documents that the SSL PRNG is not yet sufficiently seeded.
9990 If \*(UA successfully seeded the SSL PRNG then it will update the file
9991 .Pf ( Xr RAND_write_file 3 ) .
9992 This variable is only used if
9994 is not set (or not supported by the SSL/TLS library).
9997 .It Va ssl-verify-USER@HOST , ssl-verify-HOST , ssl-verify
9998 \*(OP Variable chain that sets the action to be performed if an error
9999 occurs during SSL/TLS server certificate validation against the
10000 specified or default trust stores
10003 or the SSL/TLS library builtin defaults (unless usage disallowed via
10004 .Va ssl-ca-no-defaults ) ,
10005 and as fine-tuned via
10007 Valid (case-insensitive) values are
10009 (fail and close connection immediately),
10011 (ask whether to continue on standard input),
10013 (show a warning and continue),
10015 (do not perform validation).
10021 If only set without an assigned value, then this setting inhibits the
10027 header fields that include obvious references to \*(UA.
10028 There are two pitfalls associated with this:
10029 First, the message id of outgoing messages is not known anymore.
10030 Second, an expert may still use the remaining information in the header
10031 to track down the originating mail user agent.
10032 If set to the value
10038 suppression does not occur.
10043 (\*(OP) This specifies a comma-separated list of
10048 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
10049 escape commas with reverse solidus) to be used to overwrite or define
10051 Note that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and
10052 can thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
10055 String capabilities form
10057 pairs and are expected unless noted otherwise.
10058 Numerics have to be notated as
10060 where the number is expected in normal decimal notation.
10061 Finally, booleans do not have any value but indicate a true or false
10062 state simply by being defined or not; this indeed means that \*(UA
10063 does not support undefining an existing boolean.
10064 String capability values will undergo some expansions before use:
10065 for one notations like
10068 .Ql control-LETTER ,
10069 and for clarification purposes
10071 can be used to specify
10073 (the control notation
10075 could lead to misreadings when a left bracket follows, which it does for
10076 the standard CSI sequence);
10077 finally three letter octal sequences, as in
10080 To specify that a terminal supports 256-colours, and to define sequences
10081 that home the cursor and produce an audible bell, one might write:
10083 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10084 set termcap='Co#256,home=\eE[H,bel=^G'
10088 The following terminal capabilities are or may be meaningful for the
10089 operation of the builtin line editor or \*(UA in general:
10092 .Bl -tag -compact -width yay
10094 .It Cd colors Ns \0or Cd Co
10096 numeric capability specifying the maximum number of colours.
10097 Note that \*(UA does not actually care about the terminal beside that,
10098 but always emits ANSI / ISO 6429 escape sequences.
10101 .It Cd rmcup Ns \0or Cd te Ns \0/ Cd smcup Ns \0or Cd ti
10104 .Cd enter_ca_mode ,
10105 respectively: exit and enter the alternative screen
10107 effectively turning \*(UA into a fullscreen application.
10108 To disable that, set (at least) one to the empty string.
10110 .It Cd smkx Ns \0or Cd ks Ns \0/ Cd rmkx Ns \0or Cd ke
10114 respectively: enable and disable the keypad.
10115 This is always enabled if available, because it seems even keyboards
10116 without keypads generate other key codes for, e.g., cursor keys in that
10117 case, and only if enabled we see the codes that we are interested in.
10119 .It Cd ed Ns \0or Cd cd
10123 .It Cd clear Ns \0or Cd cl
10125 clear the screen and home cursor.
10126 (Will be simulated via
10131 .It Cd home Ns \0or Cd ho
10136 .It Cd el Ns \0or Cd ce
10138 clear to the end of line.
10139 (Will be simulated via
10141 plus repetitions of space characters.)
10143 .It Cd hpa Ns \0or Cd ch
10144 .Cd column_address :
10145 move the cursor (to the given column parameter) in the current row.
10146 (Will be simulated via
10152 .Cd carriage_return :
10153 move to the first column in the current row.
10154 The default builtin fallback is
10157 .It Cd cub1 Ns \0or Cd le
10159 move the cursor left one space (non-destructively).
10160 The default builtin fallback is
10163 .It Cd cuf1 Ns \0or Cd nd
10165 move the cursor right one space (non-destructively).
10166 The default builtin fallback is
10168 which is used by most terminals.
10176 Many more capabilities which describe key-sequences are documented for
10180 .It Va termcap-disable
10181 \*(OP Disable any interaction with a terminal control library.
10182 If set only some generic fallback builtins and possibly the content of
10184 describe the terminal to \*(UA.
10186 that this variable will only be queried once at program startup and can
10187 thus only be specified in resource files or on the command line.
10191 If defined, gives the number of lines of a message to be displayed
10194 if unset, the first five lines are printed, if set to 0 the variable
10197 If the value is negative then its absolute value will be used for
10198 unsigned right shifting (see
10206 \*(BO If set then the
10208 command series will strip adjacent empty lines and quotations.
10212 The character set of the terminal \*(UA operates on,
10213 and the one and only supported character set that \*(UA can use if no
10214 character set conversion capabilities have been compiled into it,
10215 in which case it defaults to ISO-8859-1 unless it can deduce a value
10218 locale environment.
10219 It defaults to UTF-8 if conversion is available.
10220 Refer to the section
10221 .Sx "Character sets"
10222 for the complete picture about character sets.
10225 .It Va typescript-mode
10226 \*(BO A special multiplex variable that disables all variables and
10227 settings which result in behaviour that interferes with running \*(UA in
10230 .Va colour-disable ,
10231 .Va line-editor-disable
10232 and (before startup completed only)
10233 .Va termcap-disable .
10234 Unsetting it does not restore the former state of the covered settings.
10238 For a safety-by-default policy \*(UA sets its process
10242 but this variable can be used to override that:
10243 set it to an empty value to do not change the (current) setting,
10244 otherwise the process file mode creation mask is updated to the new value.
10245 Child processes inherit the process file mode creation mask.
10248 .It Va user-HOST , user
10249 \*(IN Variable chain that sets a global fallback user name, which is
10250 used in case none has been given in the protocol and account-specific
10252 This variable defaults to the name of the user who runs \*(UA.
10256 \*(BO Setting this enables upward compatibility with \*(UA
10257 version 15.0 in respect to which configuration options are available and
10258 how they are handled.
10259 This manual uses \*(IN and \*(OU to refer to the new and the old way of
10260 doing things, respectively.
10264 \*(BO This setting, also controllable via the command line option
10266 causes \*(UA to be more verbose, e.g., it will display obsoletion
10267 warnings and SSL/TLS certificate chains.
10268 Even though marked \*(BO this option may be set twice in order to
10269 increase the level of verbosity even more, in which case even details of
10270 the actual message delivery and protocol conversations are shown.
10273 is sufficient to disable verbosity as such.
10279 .It Va version , version-major , version-minor , version-update
10280 \*(RO \*(UA version information: the first variable contains a string
10281 containing the complete version identification, the latter three contain
10282 only digits: the major, minor and update version numbers.
10283 The output of the command
10285 will include this information.
10288 .It Va writebackedited
10289 If this variable is set messages modified using the
10293 commands are written back to the current folder when it is quit;
10294 it is only honoured for writable folders in MBOX format, though.
10295 Note that the editor will be pointed to the raw message content in that
10296 case, i.e., neither MIME decoding nor decryption will have been
10297 performed, and proper RFC 4155
10299 quoting of newly added or edited content is also left as an excercise to
10302 .\" }}} (Variables)
10303 .\" }}} (INTERNAL VARIABLES)
10306 .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT {{{
10310 .Dq environment variable
10311 should be considered an indication that these variables are either
10312 standardized as vivid parts of process environments, or that they are
10313 commonly found in there.
10314 The process environment is inherited from the
10316 once \*(UA is started, and unless otherwise explicitly noted handling of
10317 the following variables transparently integrates into that of the
10318 .Sx "INTERNAL VARIABLES"
10319 from \*(UA's point of view.
10320 This means that, e.g., they can be managed via
10324 causing automatic program environment updates (to be inherited by
10325 newly created child processes).
10328 In order to transparently integrate other environment variables equally
10329 they need to be imported (linked) with the command
10331 This command can also be used to set and unset non-integrated
10332 environment variables from scratch, sufficient system support provided.
10333 The following example, applicable to a POSIX shell, sets the
10335 environment variable for \*(UA only, and beforehand exports the
10337 in order to affect any further processing in the running shell:
10339 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10340 $ EDITOR="vim -u ${HOME}/.vimrc"
10342 $ COLUMNS=80 \*(uA -R
10345 .Bl -tag -width ".It Ev BaNg"
10348 The user's preferred width in column positions for the terminal screen
10350 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
10351 processes and the MLE (see
10352 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" )
10353 in interactive mode thereafter.
10357 The name of the (mailbox)
10359 to use for saving aborted messages if
10361 is set; this defaults to
10368 is set no output will be generated, otherwise the contents of the file
10373 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
10377 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10378 A default editor is used if this value is not defined.
10382 The user's home directory.
10383 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10390 .It Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_COLLATE , LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES
10394 .Sx "Character sets" .
10398 The user's preferred number of lines on a page or the vertical screen
10399 or window size in lines.
10400 Queried and used once on program startup, actively managed for child
10401 processes in interactive mode thereafter.
10405 Pathname of the directory lister to use in the
10407 command when operating on local mailboxes.
10410 (path search through
10415 Upon startup \*(UA will actively ensure that this variable refers to the
10416 name of the user who runs \*(UA, in order to be able to pass a verified
10417 name to any newly created child process.
10421 Is used as the users
10423 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
10427 This is assumed to be an absolute pathname.
10431 \*(OP Overrides the default path search for
10432 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
10433 which is defined in the standard RFC 1524 as
10434 .Ql ~/.mailcap:\:/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/etc/mailcap:\:/usr/local/etc/mailcap .
10435 .\" TODO we should have a mailcaps-default virtual RDONLY option!
10436 (\*(UA makes it a configuration option, however.)
10437 Note this is not a search path, but a path search.
10441 Is used as a startup file instead of
10444 When \*(UA scripts are invoked on behalf of other users,
10445 either this variable should be set to
10449 command line option should be used in order to avoid side-effects from
10450 reading their configuration files.
10451 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10454 .It Ev MAILX_NO_SYSTEM_RC
10455 If this variable is set then reading of
10457 at startup is inhibited, i.e., the same effect is achieved as if \*(UA
10458 had been started up with the option
10460 (and according argument) or
10462 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment.
10466 The name of the users mbox file.
10467 A logical subset of the special
10468 .Sx "Filename transformations"
10472 The fallback default is
10479 .Sx "secondary mailbox"
10480 is used as the file to save messages from the
10482 .Sx "primary system mailbox"
10483 that have been read.
10485 .Sx "Message states" .
10489 \*(IN\*(OP This variable overrides the default location of the user's
10495 Pathname of the program to use for backing the command
10499 variable enforces usage of a pager for output.
10500 The default paginator is
10502 (path search through
10505 \*(UA inspects the contents of this variable: if its contains the string
10507 then a non-existing environment variable
10514 dependent on whether terminal control support is available and whether
10515 that supports full (alternative) screen mode or not (also see
10516 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ) .
10520 will optionally be set to
10527 A colon-separated list of directories that is searched by the shell when
10528 looking for commands, e.g.,
10529 .Ql /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin .
10532 .It Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
10533 This variable is automatically looked for upon startup, see
10539 The shell to use for the commands
10544 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES"
10545 and when starting subprocesses.
10546 A default shell is used if this environment variable is not defined.
10549 .It Ev SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
10550 If set, this specifies a time in seconds since the Unix epoch
10551 (1970-01-01) to be used in place of the current time.
10552 This is for the sake of reproduceability of tests, to be used during
10553 development or by software packagers.
10557 \*(OP The terminal type for which output is to be prepared.
10558 For extended colour and font control please refer to
10559 .Sx "Coloured display" ,
10560 and for terminal management in general to
10561 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" .
10565 Used as directory for temporary files instead of
10568 This variable is only used when it resides in the process environment,
10569 but \*(UA will ensure at startup that this environment variable is
10570 updated to contain a usable temporary directory.
10576 (see there), but this variable is not standardized, should therefore not
10577 be used, and is only corrected if already set.
10581 Pathname of the text editor to use in the
10585 .Sx "COMMAND ESCAPES" .
10593 .Bl -tag -width ".It Pa BaNg"
10595 File giving initial commands.
10598 System wide initialization file.
10602 \*(OP Personal MIME type handler definition file, see
10603 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
10604 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
10607 .It Pa /etc/mailcap
10608 \*(OP System wide MIME type handler definition file, see
10609 .Sx "The Mailcap files" .
10610 (RFC 1524 location, the actual path is a configuration option.)
10613 .It Pa ~/.mime.types
10614 Personal MIME types, see
10615 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
10618 .It Pa /etc/mime.types
10619 System wide MIME types, see
10620 .Sx "The mime.types files" .
10624 \*(IN\*(OP The default location of the users
10626 file \(en the section
10627 .Sx "The .netrc file"
10628 documents the file format.
10631 .\" .Ss "The mime.types files" {{{
10632 .Ss "The mime.types files"
10634 When sending messages \*(UA tries to determine the content type of all
10636 When displaying message content or attachments \*(UA uses the content
10637 type to decide whether it can directly display data or whether it needs
10638 to deal with content handlers.
10639 It learns about M(ultipurpose) I(nternet) M(ail) E(xtensions) types and
10640 how to treat them by reading
10642 files, the loading of which can be controlled by setting the variable
10643 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
10646 can also be used to deal with MIME types.)
10648 files have the following syntax:
10651 .Dl type/subtype extension [extension ...]
10656 are strings describing the file contents, and one or multiple
10658 s, separated by whitespace, name the part of a filename starting after
10659 the last dot (of interest).
10660 Comments may be introduced anywhere on a line with a number sign
10662 causing the remaining line to be discarded.
10664 \*(UA also supports an extended, non-portable syntax in specially
10665 crafted files, which can be loaded via the alternative value syntax of
10666 .Va mimetypes-load-control
10667 and prepends an optional
10671 .Dl [type-marker ]type/subtype extension [extension ...]
10674 The following type markers are supported:
10677 .Bl -tag -compact -width ".It Ar _n_u"
10679 Treat message parts with this content as plain text.
10684 Treat message parts with this content as HTML tagsoup.
10685 If the \*(OPal HTML-tagsoup-to-text converter is not available treat
10686 the content as plain text instead.
10690 but instead of falling back to plain text require an explicit content
10691 handler to be defined.
10696 for sending messages:
10698 .Va mime-allow-text-controls ,
10699 .Va mimetypes-load-control .
10700 For reading etc. messages:
10701 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
10702 .Sx "The Mailcap files" ,
10704 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
10705 .Va mimetypes-load-control ,
10706 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
10707 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
10710 .\" .Ss "The Mailcap files" {{{
10711 .Ss "The Mailcap files"
10713 .\" TODO MAILCAP DISABLED
10714 .Sy This feature is not available in v14.9.0, sorry!
10716 .Dq User Agent Configuration Mechanism
10717 which \*(UA \*(OPally supports.
10718 It defines a file format to be used to inform mail user agent programs
10719 about the locally-installed facilities for handling various data
10720 formats, i.e., about commands and how they can be used to display, edit
10721 etc. MIME part contents, as well as a default path search that includes
10722 multiple possible locations of
10726 environment variable that can be used to overwrite that (repeating here
10727 that it is not a search path, but instead a path search specification).
10728 Any existing files will be loaded in sequence, appending any content to
10729 the list of MIME type handler directives.
10733 files consist of a set of newline separated entries.
10734 Comment lines start with a number sign
10736 (in the first column!) and are ignored.
10737 Empty lines are also ignored.
10738 All other lines form individual entries that must adhere to the syntax
10740 To extend a single entry (not comment) its line can be continued on
10741 follow lines if newline characters are
10743 by preceding them with the reverse solidus character
10745 The standard does not specify how leading whitespace of follow lines
10746 is to be treated, therefore \*(UA retains it.
10750 entries consist of a number of semicolon
10752 separated fields, and the reverse solidus
10754 character can be used to escape any following character including
10755 semicolon and itself.
10756 The first two fields are mandatory and must occur in the specified
10757 order, the remaining fields are optional and may appear in any order.
10758 Leading and trailing whitespace of content is ignored (removed).
10761 The first field defines the MIME
10763 the entry is about to handle (case-insensitively, and no reverse solidus
10764 escaping is possible in this field).
10765 If the subtype is specified as an asterisk
10767 the entry is meant to match all subtypes of the named type, e.g.,
10769 would match any audio type.
10770 The second field defines the shell command which shall be used to
10772 MIME parts of the given type; it is implicitly called the
10779 shell commands message (MIME part) data is passed via standard input
10780 unless the given shell command includes one or more instances of the
10783 in which case these instances will be replaced with a temporary filename
10784 and the data will have been stored in the file that is being pointed to.
10787 shell commands data is assumed to be generated on standard output unless
10788 the given command includes (one ore multiple)
10790 In any case any given
10792 format is replaced with a(n already) properly quoted filename.
10793 Note that when a command makes use of a temporary file via
10795 then \*(UA will remove it again, as if the
10796 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile ,
10797 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
10799 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10800 flags had been set; see below for more.
10803 The optional fields either define a shell command or an attribute (flag)
10804 value, the latter being a single word and the former being a keyword
10805 naming the field followed by an equals sign
10807 succeeded by a shell command, and as usual for any
10809 content any whitespace surrounding the equals sign will be removed, too.
10810 Optional fields include the following:
10813 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
10815 A program that can be used to compose a new body or body part in the
10817 (Currently unused.)
10819 .It Cd composetyped
10822 field, but is to be used when the composing program needs to specify the
10824 header field to be applied to the composed data.
10825 (Currently unused.)
10828 A program that can be used to edit a body or body part in the given
10830 (Currently unused.)
10833 A program that can be used to print a message or body part in the given
10835 (Currently unused.)
10838 Specifies a program to be run to test some condition, e.g., the machine
10839 architecture, or the window system in use, to determine whether or not
10840 this mailcap entry applies.
10841 If the test fails, a subsequent mailcap entry should be sought; also see
10842 .Cd x-mailx-test-once .
10844 .It Cd needsterminal
10845 This flag field indicates that the given shell command must be run on
10846 an interactive terminal.
10847 \*(UA will temporarily release the terminal to the given command in
10848 interactive mode, in non-interactive mode this entry will be entirely
10849 ignored; this flag implies
10850 .Cd x-mailx-noquote .
10852 .It Cd copiousoutput
10853 A flag field which indicates that the output of the
10855 command will be an extended stream of textual output that can be
10856 (re)integrated into \*(UA's normal visual display.
10857 It is mutually exclusive with
10860 .Cd x-mailx-always .
10862 .It Cd textualnewlines
10863 A flag field which indicates that this type of data is line-oriented and
10864 that, if encoded in
10866 all newlines should be converted to canonical form (CRLF) before
10867 encoding, and will be in that form after decoding.
10868 (Currently unused.)
10870 .It Cd nametemplate
10871 This field gives a file name format, in which
10873 will be replaced by a random string, the joined combination of which
10874 will be used as the filename denoted by
10875 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
10876 One could specify that a GIF file being passed to an image viewer should
10877 have a name ending in
10880 .Ql nametemplate=%s.gif .
10881 Note that \*(UA ignores the name template unless that solely specifies
10882 a filename suffix that consists of (ASCII) alphabetic and numeric
10883 characters, the underscore and dot only.
10886 Names a file, in X11 bitmap (xbm) format, which points to an appropriate
10887 icon to be used to visually denote the presence of this kind of data.
10888 This field is not used by \*(UA.
10891 A textual description that describes this type of data.
10893 .It Cd x-mailx-always
10894 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
10896 command shall be executed even if multiple messages will be displayed
10898 Normally messages which require external viewers that produce output
10899 which does not integrate into \*(UA's visual display (i.e., do not have
10901 set) have to be addressed directly and individually.
10902 (To avoid cases where, e.g., a thousand PDF viewer instances are spawned
10905 .It Cd x-mailx-even-if-not-interactive
10906 An extension flag test field \(em by default handlers without
10908 are entirely ignored in non-interactive mode, but if this flag is set
10909 then their use will be considered.
10910 It is an error if this flag is set for commands that use the flag
10911 .Cd needsterminal .
10913 .It Cd x-mailx-noquote
10914 An extension flag field that indicates that even a
10917 command shall not be used to generate message quotes
10918 (as it would be by default).
10920 .It Cd x-mailx-async
10921 Extension flag field that denotes that the given
10923 command shall be executed asynchronously, without blocking \*(UA.
10924 Cannot be used in conjunction with
10925 .Cd needsterminal .
10927 .It Cd x-mailx-test-once
10928 Extension flag which denotes whether the given
10930 command shall be evaluated once only and the (boolean) result be cached.
10931 This is handy if some global unchanging condition is to be queried, like
10932 .Dq running under the X Window System .
10934 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
10935 Extension flag field that requests creation of a zero-sized temporary
10936 file, the name of which is to be placed in the environment variable
10937 .Ev MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY .
10938 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10942 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill
10943 Normally the MIME part content is passed to the handler via standard
10944 input; if this flag is set then the data will instead be written into
10946 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile .
10947 In order to cause deletion of the temporary file you will have to set
10948 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10950 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10954 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink
10955 Extension flag field that requests that the temporary file shall be
10956 deleted automatically when the command loop is entered again at latest.
10957 (Do not use this for asynchronous handlers.)
10958 It is an error to use this flag with commands that include a
10960 format, or without also setting
10961 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile
10963 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-fill .
10965 .It Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
10968 implies the three tmpfile related flags above, but if you want, e.g.,
10970 and deal with the temporary file yourself, you can add in this flag to
10972 .Cd x-mailx-tmpfile-unlink .
10977 The standard includes the possibility to define any number of additional
10978 entry fields, prefixed by
10980 Flag fields apply to the entire
10982 entry \(em in some unusual cases, this may not be desirable, but
10983 differentiation can be accomplished via separate entries, taking
10984 advantage of the fact that subsequent entries are searched if an earlier
10985 one does not provide enough information.
10988 command needs to specify the
10992 command shall not, the following will help out the latter (with enabled
10996 level \*(UA will show information about handler evaluation):
10998 .Bd -literal -offset indent
10999 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; needsterminal
11000 application/postscript; ps-to-terminal %s; compose=idraw %s
11004 In fields any occurrence of the format string
11006 will be replaced by the
11009 Named parameters from the
11011 field may be placed in the command execution line using
11013 followed by the parameter name and a closing
11016 The entire parameter should appear as a single command line argument,
11017 regardless of embedded spaces; thus:
11019 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11021 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=42
11024 multipart/*; /usr/local/bin/showmulti \e
11025 %t %{boundary} ; composetyped = /usr/local/bin/makemulti
11027 # Executed shell command
11028 /usr/local/bin/showmulti multipart/mixed 42
11032 .\" TODO v15: Mailcap: %n,%F
11033 Note that \*(UA does not support handlers for multipart MIME parts as
11034 shown in this example (as of today).
11035 \*(UA does not support the additional formats
11039 An example file, also showing how to properly deal with the expansion of
11041 which includes any quotes that are necessary to make it a valid shell
11042 argument by itself and thus will cause undesired behaviour when placed
11043 in additional user-provided quotes:
11045 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11047 text/richtext; richtext %s; copiousoutput
11049 text/x-perl; perl -cWT %s
11051 application/pdf; \e
11053 trap "rm -f ${infile}" EXIT\e; \e
11054 trap "exit 75" INT QUIT TERM\e; \e
11056 x-mailx-async; x-mailx-tmpfile-keep
11058 application/*; echo "This is \e"%t\e" but \e
11059 is 50 \e% Greek to me" \e; < %s head -c 1024 | cat -vET; \e
11060 copiousoutput; x-mailx-noquote
11065 .Sx "HTML mail and MIME attachments" ,
11066 .Sx "The mime.types files" ,
11069 .Va mime-counter-evidence ,
11070 .Va pipe-TYPE/SUBTYPE ,
11071 .Va pipe-EXTENSION .
11074 .\" .Ss "The .netrc file" {{{
11075 .Ss "The .netrc file"
11079 file contains user credentials for machine accounts.
11080 The default location in the user's
11082 directory may be overridden by the
11084 environment variable.
11085 The file consists of space, tabulator or newline separated tokens.
11086 \*(UA implements a parser that supports a superset of the original BSD
11087 syntax, but users should nonetheless be aware of portability glitches
11088 of that file format, shall their
11090 be usable across multiple programs and platforms:
11093 .Bl -bullet -compact
11095 BSD does not support single, but only double quotation marks, e.g.,
11096 .Ql password="pass with spaces" .
11098 BSD (only?) supports escaping of single characters via a reverse solidus
11099 (e.g., a space can be escaped via
11101 in- as well as outside of a quoted string.
11103 BSD does not require a final quotation mark of the last user input token.
11105 The original BSD (Berknet) parser also supported a format which allowed
11106 tokens to be separated with commas \(en whereas at least Hewlett-Packard
11107 still seems to support this syntax, \*(UA does not!
11109 As a non-portable extension some widely-used programs support
11110 shell-style comments: if an input line starts, after any amount of
11111 whitespace, with a number sign
11113 then the rest of the line is ignored.
11115 Whereas other programs may require that the
11117 file is accessible by only the user if it contains a
11119 token for any other
11123 \*(UA will always require these strict permissions.
11127 Of the following list of supported tokens \*(UA only uses (and caches)
11132 At runtime the command
11134 can be used to control \*(UA's
11138 .Bl -tag -width ".It Cd BaNg"
11139 .It Cd machine Ar name
11140 The hostname of the entries' machine, lowercase-normalized by \*(UA
11142 Any further file content, until either end-of-file or the occurrence
11147 first-class token is bound (only related) to the machine
11150 As an extension that should not be the cause of any worries
11151 \*(UA supports a single wildcard prefix for
11153 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11154 machine *.example.com login USER password PASS
11155 machine pop3.example.com login USER password PASS
11156 machine smtp.example.com login USER password PASS
11162 .Ql pop3.example.com ,
11166 .Ql local.smtp.example.com .
11167 Note that in the example neither
11168 .Ql pop3.example.com
11170 .Ql smtp.example.com
11171 will be matched by the wildcard, since the exact matches take
11172 precedence (it is however faster to specify it the other way around).
11175 This is the same as
11177 except that it is a fallback entry that is used shall none of the
11178 specified machines match; only one default token may be specified,
11179 and it must be the last first-class token.
11181 .It Cd login Ar name
11182 The user name on the remote machine.
11184 .It Cd password Ar string
11185 The user's password on the remote machine.
11187 .It Cd account Ar string
11188 Supply an additional account password.
11189 This is merely for FTP purposes.
11191 .It Cd macdef Ar name
11193 A macro is defined with the specified
11195 it is formed from all lines beginning with the next line and continuing
11196 until a blank line is (consecutive newline characters are) encountered.
11199 entries cannot be utilized by multiple machines, too, but must be
11200 defined following the
11202 they are intended to be used with.)
11205 exists, it is automatically run as the last step of the login process.
11206 This is merely for FTP purposes.
11213 .\" .Sh EXAMPLES {{{
11216 .\" .Ss "An example configuration" {{{
11217 .Ss "An example configuration"
11219 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11220 # This example assumes v15.0 compatibility mode
11223 # Request strict transport security checks!
11224 set ssl-verify=strict
11226 # Where are the up-to-date SSL certificates?
11227 # (Since we manage up-to-date ones explicitly, do not use any,
11228 # possibly outdated, default certificates shipped with OpenSSL)
11229 #set ssl-ca-dir=/etc/ssl/certs
11230 set ssl-ca-file=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
11231 set ssl-ca-no-defaults
11232 #set ssl-ca-flags=partial-chain
11233 wysh set smime-ca-file="${ssl-ca-file}" \e
11234 smime-ca-no-defaults #smime-ca-flags="${ssl-ca-flags}"
11236 # Do not use protocols older than TLS v1.2.
11237 # Change this only when the remote server does not support it:
11238 # maybe use ssl-protocol-HOST (or -USER@HOST) syntax to define
11239 # such explicit exceptions, then, e.g.
11240 # set ssl-protocol-exam.ple='-ALL,+TLSv1.1'
11241 set ssl-protocol='-ALL,+TLSv1.2'
11243 # Explicitly define the list of ciphers, which may improve security,
11244 # especially with protocols older than TLS v1.2. See ciphers(1).
11245 # Including "@STRENGTH" will sort the final list by algorithm strength.
11246 # In reality it is possibly best to only use ssl-cipher-list-HOST
11247 # (or -USER@HOST), as necessary, again..
11248 set ssl-cipher-list=TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:@STRENGTH
11249 # TLSv1.2:!aNULL:!eNULL:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:\e
11250 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:@STRENGTH
11251 # ALL:!aNULL:!eNULL:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!MD5:!RC4:!EXPORT:@STRENGTH
11253 # Essential setting: select allowed character sets
11254 set sendcharsets=utf-8,iso-8859-1
11256 # A very kind option: when replying to a message, first try to
11257 # use the same encoding that the original poster used herself!
11258 set reply-in-same-charset
11260 # When replying to or forwarding a message the comment and name
11261 # parts of email addresses are removed unless this variable is set
11264 # When sending messages, wait until the Mail-Transfer-Agent finishs.
11265 # Only like this you will be able to see errors reported through the
11266 # exit status of the MTA (including the builtin SMTP one)!
11269 # Only use builtin MIME types, no mime.types(5) files
11270 set mimetypes-load-control
11272 # Default directory where we act in (relative to $HOME)
11274 # A leading "+" (often) means: under *folder*
11275 # *record* is used to save copies of sent messages
11276 set MBOX=+mbox.mbox record=+sent.mbox DEAD=+dead.txt
11278 # Make "file mymbox" and "file myrec" go to..
11279 shortcut mymbox %:+mbox.mbox myrec +sent.mbox
11281 # Not really optional, e.g., for S/MIME
11282 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11284 # It may be necessary to set hostname and/or smtp-hostname
11285 # if the "SERVER" of mta and "domain" of from do not match.
11286 # The `urlencode' command can be used to encode USER and PASS
11287 set mta=(smtps?|submission)://[USER[:PASS]@]SERVER[:PORT] \e
11288 smtp-auth=login/plain... \e
11291 # Never refuse to start into interactive mode, and more
11293 colour-pager crt= \e
11294 followup-to followup-to-honour=ask-yes \e
11295 history-file=+.\*(uAhist history-size=-1 history-gabby \e
11296 mime-counter-evidence=0xE \e
11297 prompt='?\e?!\e![\e${account}#\e${mailbox-display}]? ' \e
11298 reply-to-honour=ask-yes \e
11301 # Only include the selected header fields when typing messages
11302 headerpick type retain add from_ date from to cc subject \e
11303 message-id mail-followup-to reply-to
11304 # ...when forwarding messages
11305 headerpick forward retain add subject date from to cc
11306 # ...when saving message, etc.
11307 #headerpick save ignore add ^Original-.*$ ^X-.*$
11309 # Some mailing lists
11310 mlist '@xyz-editor\e.xyz$' '@xyzf\e.xyz$'
11311 mlsubscribe '^xfans@xfans\e.xyz$'
11313 # A real life example of a very huge free mail provider
11315 set folder=~/spool/XooglX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11316 set from='Your Name <address@examp.ple>'
11317 set mta=smtp://USER:PASS@smtp.gmXil.com smtp-use-starttls
11320 # Here is a pretty large one which does not allow sending mails
11321 # if there is a domain name mismatch on the SMTP protocol level,
11322 # which would bite us if the value of from does not match, e.g.,
11323 # for people who have a sXXXXeforge project and want to speak
11324 # with the mailing list under their project account (in from),
11325 # still sending the message through their normal mail provider
11327 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11328 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11329 set mta=smtps://USER:PASS@smtp.yaXXex.ru:465 \e
11330 hostname=yaXXex.com smtp-hostname=
11333 # Create some new commands so that, e.g., `ls /tmp' will..
11334 wysh ghost lls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlrS'
11335 wysh ghost llS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlS'
11336 wysh ghost ls '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFrS'
11337 wysh ghost lS '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFS'
11338 wysh ghost lla '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlr'
11339 wysh ghost llA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFl'
11340 wysh ghost la '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFr'
11341 wysh ghost lA '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aF'
11342 wysh ghost ll '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFltr'
11343 wysh ghost lL '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFlt'
11344 wysh ghost l '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFtr'
11345 wysh ghost L '!ls ${LS_COLOR_FLAG} -aFt'
11347 # We do not support gpg(1) directly yet. But simple --clearsign'd
11348 # message parts can be dealt with as follows:
11351 wysh set pipe-text/plain=$'@*#++=@\e
11352 < "${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" awk \e
11353 -v TMPFILE="${MAILX_FILENAME_TEMPORARY}" \e'\e
11355 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----/,/^$/ {\e
11358 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
11359 system("gpg --verify " TMPFILE " 2>&1");\e
11360 print "--- GPG --verify ---";\e
11364 /^-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----/,\e
11365 /^-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----/{\e
11375 !printf 'Key IDs to gpg --recv-keys: ';\e
11377 gpg --recv-keys ${keyids};
11383 When storing passwords in
11385 appropriate permissions should be set on this file with
11386 .Ql $ chmod 0600 \*(ur .
11389 is available user credentials can be stored in the central
11391 file instead; e.g., here is a different version of the example account
11392 that sets up SMTP and POP3:
11394 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11399 set folder=~/spool/XandeX inbox=+syste.mbox sent=+sent
11400 set from='Your Name <address@exam.ple>'
11402 # Load an encrypted ~/.netrc by uncommenting the next line
11403 #set netrc-pipe='gpg -qd ~/.netrc.pgp'
11405 set mta=smtps://smtp.yXXXXx.ru:465 \e
11406 smtp-hostname= hostname=yXXXXx.com
11407 set pop3-keepalive=240 pop3-no-apop-pop.yXXXXx.ru
11408 ghost xp fi pop3s://pop.yXXXXx.ru
11417 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11418 machine *.yXXXXx.ru login USER password PASS
11422 This configuration should now work just fine:
11425 .Dl $ echo text | \*(uA -vv -AXandeX -s Subject user@exam.ple
11428 .\" .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME" {{{
11429 .Ss "Signed and encrypted messages with S/MIME"
11431 \*(OP S/MIME provides two central mechanisms:
11432 message signing and message encryption.
11433 A signed message contains some data in addition to the regular text.
11434 The data can be used to verify that the message was sent using a valid
11435 certificate, that the sender's address in the message header matches
11436 that in the certificate, and that the message text has not been altered.
11437 Signing a message does not change its regular text;
11438 it can be read regardless of whether the recipient's software is able to
11442 It is thus usually possible to sign all outgoing messages if so desired.
11443 Encryption, in contrast, makes the message text invisible for all people
11444 except those who have access to the secret decryption key.
11445 To encrypt a message, the specific recipient's public encryption key
11447 It is therefore not possible to send encrypted mail to people unless their
11448 key has been retrieved from either previous communication or public key
11450 A message should always be signed before it is encrypted.
11451 Otherwise, it is still possible that the encrypted message text is
11455 A central concept to S/MIME is that of the certification authority (CA).
11456 A CA is a trusted institution that issues certificates.
11457 For each of these certificates it can be verified that it really
11458 originates from the CA, provided that the CA's own certificate is
11460 A set of CA certificates is usually delivered with OpenSSL and installed
11462 If you trust the source of your OpenSSL software installation,
11463 this offers reasonable security for S/MIME on the Internet.
11465 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults
11466 to avoid using the default certificate and point
11470 to a trusted pool of certificates.
11471 In general, a certificate cannot be more secure than the method its CA
11472 certificate has been retrieved with.
11475 The first thing you need for participating in S/MIME message exchange is
11476 your personal certificate, including a private key.
11477 The certificate contains public information, in particular your name and
11478 your email address(es), and the public key that is used by others to
11479 encrypt messages for you,
11480 and to verify signed messages they supposedly received from you.
11481 The certificate is included in each signed message you send.
11482 The private key must be kept secret.
11483 It is used to decrypt messages that were previously encrypted with your
11484 public key, and to sign messages.
11487 For personal use it is recommended that you get a S/MIME certificate
11488 from one of the major CAs on the Internet using your WWW browser.
11489 Many CAs offer such certificates for free.
11491 .Lk https://www.CAcert.org
11492 which issues client and server certificates to members of their
11493 community for free; their root certificate
11494 .Pf ( Lk https://\:www.cacert.org/\:certs/\:root.crt )
11495 is often not in the default set of trusted CA root certificates, though,
11496 which means you will have to download their root certificate separately
11497 and ensure it is part of our S/MIME certificate validation chain by
11500 or as a vivid member of the
11501 .Va smime-ca-file .
11502 But let us take a step-by-step tour on how to setup S/MIME with
11503 a certificate from CAcert.org despite this situation!
11506 First of all you will have to become a member of the CAcert.org
11507 community, simply by registrating yourself via the web interface.
11508 Once you are, create and verify all email addresses you want to be able
11509 to create signed and encrypted messages for/with using the corresponding
11510 entries of the web interface.
11511 Now ready to create S/MIME certificates, so let us create a new
11512 .Dq client certificate ,
11513 ensure to include all email addresses that should be covered by the
11514 certificate in the following web form, and also to use your name as the
11518 Create a private key and a certificate request on your local computer
11519 (please see the manual pages of the used commands for more in-depth
11520 knowledge on what the used arguments etc. do):
11523 .Dl openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out creq.pem
11526 Afterwards copy-and-paste the content of
11528 into the certificate-request (CSR) field of the web form on the
11529 CAcert.org website (you may need to unfold some
11530 .Dq advanced options
11531 to see the corresponding text field).
11532 This last step will ensure that your private key (which never left your
11533 box) and the certificate belong together (through the public key that
11534 will find its way into the certificate via the certificate-request).
11535 You are now ready and can create your CAcert certified certificate.
11536 Download and store or copy-and-paste it as
11541 In order to use your new S/MIME setup a combined private key/public key
11542 (certificate) file has to be created:
11545 .Dl cat key.pem pub.crt > ME@HERE.com.paired
11548 This is the file \*(UA will work with.
11549 If you have created your private key with a passphrase then \*(UA will
11550 ask you for it whenever a message is signed or decrypted.
11551 Set the following variables to henceforth use S/MIME (setting
11553 is of interest for verification only):
11555 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11556 set smime-ca-file=ALL-TRUSTED-ROOT-CERTS-HERE \e
11557 smime-sign-cert=ME@HERE.com.paired \e
11558 smime-sign-message-digest=SHA256 \e
11563 From each signed message you send, the recipient can fetch your
11564 certificate and use it to send encrypted mail back to you.
11565 Accordingly if somebody sends you a signed message, you can do the same,
11568 command to check the validity of the certificate.
11571 Variables of interest for S/MIME signing:
11573 .Va smime-ca-file ,
11574 .Va smime-ca-flags ,
11575 .Va smime-ca-no-defaults ,
11576 .Va smime-crl-dir ,
11577 .Va smime-crl-file ,
11579 .Va smime-sign-cert ,
11580 .Va smime-sign-include-certs
11582 .Va smime-sign-message-digest .
11585 After it has been verified save the certificate via
11587 and tell \*(UA that it should use it for encryption for further
11588 communication with that somebody:
11590 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11592 set smime-encrypt-USER@HOST=FILENAME \e
11593 smime-cipher-USER@HOST=AES256
11597 Additional variables of interest for S/MIME en- and decryption:
11600 .Va smime-encrypt-USER@HOST .
11603 You should carefully consider if you prefer to store encrypted messages
11605 If you do, anybody who has access to your mail folders can read them,
11606 but if you do not, you might be unable to read them yourself later if
11607 you happen to lose your private key.
11610 command saves messages in decrypted form, while the
11614 commands leave them encrypted.
11617 Note that neither S/MIME signing nor encryption applies to message
11618 subjects or other header fields yet.
11619 Thus they may not contain sensitive information for encrypted messages,
11620 and cannot be trusted even if the message content has been verified.
11621 When sending signed messages,
11622 it is recommended to repeat any important header information in the
11626 .\" .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS" {{{
11627 .Ss "Using CRLs with S/MIME or SSL/TLS"
11629 \*(OP Certification authorities (CAs) issue certificate revocation
11630 lists (CRLs) on a regular basis.
11631 These lists contain the serial numbers of certificates that have been
11632 declared invalid after they have been issued.
11633 Such usually happens because the private key for the certificate has
11635 because the owner of the certificate has left the organization that is
11636 mentioned in the certificate, etc.
11637 To seriously use S/MIME or SSL/TLS verification,
11638 an up-to-date CRL is required for each trusted CA.
11639 There is otherwise no method to distinguish between valid and
11640 invalidated certificates.
11641 \*(UA currently offers no mechanism to fetch CRLs, nor to access them on
11642 the Internet, so they have to be retrieved by some external mechanism.
11645 \*(UA accepts CRLs in PEM format only;
11646 CRLs in DER format must be converted, like, e.\|g.:
11649 .Dl $ openssl crl \-inform DER \-in crl.der \-out crl.pem
11652 To tell \*(UA about the CRLs, a directory that contains all CRL files
11653 (and no other files) must be created.
11658 variables, respectively, must then be set to point to that directory.
11659 After that, \*(UA requires a CRL to be present for each CA that is used
11660 to verify a certificate.
11663 .\" .Ss "Handling spam" {{{
11664 .Ss "Handling spam"
11666 \*(OP \*(UA can make use of several spam interfaces for the purpose of
11667 identification of, and, in general, dealing with spam messages.
11668 A precondition of most commands in order to function is that the
11670 variable is set to one of the supported interfaces.
11671 Once messages have been identified as spam their (volatile)
11673 state can be prompted: the
11677 message specifications will address respective messages and their
11679 entries will be used when displaying the
11681 in the header display.
11686 rates the given messages and sets their
11689 If the spam interface offers spam scores those can also be displayed in
11690 the header display by including the
11700 will interact with the Bayesian filter of the chosen interface and learn
11701 the given messages as
11705 respectively; the last command can be used to cause
11707 of messages; it adheres to their current
11709 state and thus reverts previous teachings.
11714 will simply set and clear, respectively, the mentioned volatile
11716 message flag, without any interface interaction.
11725 requires a running instance of the
11727 server in order to function, started with the option
11729 shall Bayesian filter learning be possible.
11731 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11732 $ spamd -i localhost:2142 -i /tmp/.spamsock -d [-L] [-l]
11733 $ spamd --listen=localhost:2142 --listen=/tmp/.spamsock \e
11734 --daemonize [--local] [--allow-tell]
11738 Thereafter \*(UA can make use of these interfaces:
11740 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11741 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11742 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
11743 -Sspamc-arguments="-U /tmp/.spamsock" -Sspamc-user=
11745 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=spamc -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11746 -Sspamc-command=/usr/local/bin/spamc \e
11747 -Sspamc-arguments="-d localhost -p 2142" -Sspamc-user=
11751 Using the generic filter approach allows usage of programs like
11753 Here is an example, requiring it to be accessible via
11756 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11757 $ \*(uA -Sspam-interface=filter -Sspam-maxsize=500000 \e
11758 -Sspamfilter-ham="bogofilter -n" \e
11759 -Sspamfilter-noham="bogofilter -N" \e
11760 -Sspamfilter-nospam="bogofilter -S" \e
11761 -Sspamfilter-rate="bogofilter -TTu 2>/dev/null" \e
11762 -Sspamfilter-spam="bogofilter -s" \e
11763 -Sspamfilter-rate-scanscore="1;^(.+)$"
11767 Because messages must exist on local storage in order to be scored (or
11768 used for Bayesian filter training), it is possibly a good idea to
11769 perform the local spam check last:
11771 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11772 define spamdelhook {
11774 spamset (header x-dcc-brand-metrics "bulk")
11775 # Server-side spamassassin(1)
11776 spamset (header x-spam-flag "YES")
11777 del :s # TODO we HAVE to be able to do `spamrate :u ! :sS'
11778 move :S +maybe-spam
11781 move :S +maybe-spam
11783 set folder-hook-FOLDER=spamdelhook
11787 See also the documentation for the variables
11788 .Va spam-interface , spam-maxsize ,
11789 .Va spamc-command , spamc-arguments , spamc-user ,
11790 .Va spamfilter-ham , spamfilter-noham , spamfilter-nospam , \
11793 .Va spamfilter-rate-scanscore .
11801 In general it is a good idea to turn on
11807 twice) if something does not work well.
11808 Very often a diagnostic message can be produced that leads to the
11809 problems' solution.
11811 .\" .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup" {{{
11812 .Ss "\*(UA shortly hangs on startup"
11814 This can have two reasons, one is the necessity to wait for a file lock
11815 and cannot be helped, the other being that \*(UA calls the function
11817 in order to query the nodename of the box (sometimes the real one is
11818 needed instead of the one represented by the internal variable
11820 One may have varying success by ensuring that the real hostname and
11824 or, more generally, that the name service is properly setup \(en
11827 return the expected value?
11828 Does this local hostname has a domain suffix?
11829 RFC 6762 standardized the link-local top-level domain
11831 try again after adding an (additional) entry with this extension.
11834 .\" .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away" {{{
11835 .Ss "\*(UA exits quick, and output is cleared away"
11837 When this happens even with
11839 set, then this most likely indicates a problem with the creation of
11840 so-called dotlock files: setting
11841 .Va dotlock-ignore-error
11842 should overcome this situation.
11843 This only avoids symptoms, it does not address the problem, though.
11844 Since the output is cleared away \*(UA has support for
11845 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor" ,
11846 and switches to the
11848 which causes the output clearance: by doing
11849 .Ql set termcap='smcup='
11850 this mode can be suppressed, and by setting
11852 (twice) the actual problem should be reported.
11855 .\" .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail" {{{
11856 .Ss "I cannot login to Google mail aka GMail"
11858 Since 2014 some free service providers classify programs as
11860 unless they use a special authentification method (OAuth 2.0) which
11861 was not standardized for non-HTTP protocol authentication token query
11862 until August 2015 (RFC 7628).
11865 Different to Kerberos / GSSAPI, which is developed since the mid of the
11866 1980s, where a user can easily create a local authentication ticket for
11867 her- and himself with the locally installed
11869 program, that protocol has no such local part but instead requires
11870 a world-wide-web query to create or fetch a token; since there is no
11871 local cache this query would have to be performed whenever \*(UA is
11872 invoked (in interactive sessions situation may differ).
11875 \*(UA does not support OAuth.
11876 Because of this it is necessary to declare \*(UA a
11877 .Dq less secure app
11878 (on the providers account web page) in order to read and send mail.
11879 However, it also seems possible to take the following steps instead:
11884 give the provider the number of a mobile phone,
11887 .Dq 2-Step Verification ,
11889 create an application specific password (16 characters), and
11891 use that special password instead of the real Google account password in
11892 \*(UA (for more on that see the section
11893 .Sx "On URL syntax and credential lookup" ) .
11897 .\" .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work" {{{
11898 .Ss "Not \(dqdefunctional\(dq, but the editor key does not work"
11900 It can happen that the terminal library (see
11901 .Sx "On terminal control and line editor",
11904 reports different codes than the terminal really sends, in which case
11905 \*(UA will tell that a key binding is functional, but will not be able to
11906 recognize it because the received data does not match anything expected.
11911 ings will show the byte sequences that are expected.
11914 To overcome the situation, use, e.g., the program
11916 in conjunction with the command line option
11918 if available, to see the byte sequences which are actually produced
11919 by keypresses, and use the variable
11921 to make \*(UA aware of them.
11922 E.g., the terminal this is typed on produces some false sequences, here
11923 an example showing the shifted home key:
11925 .Bd -literal -offset indent
11928 # 1B 5B=[ 31=1 3B=; 32=2 48=H
11933 ? \*(uA -v -Stermcap='kHOM=\eE[H'
11942 .\" .Sh "SEE ALSO" {{{
11952 .Xr spamassassin 1 ,
11961 .Xr mailwrapper 8 ,
11966 .\" .Sh HISTORY {{{
11969 M. Douglas McIlroy writes in his article
11970 .Dq A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts \
11971 from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986
11974 command already appeared in First Edition
11978 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
11979 Electronic mail was there from the start.
11980 Never satisfied with its exact behavior, everybody touched it at one
11981 time or another: to assure the safety of simultaneous access, to improve
11982 privacy, to survive crashes, to exploit uucp, to screen out foreign
11983 freeloaders, or whatever.
11984 Not until v7 did the interface change (Thompson).
11985 Later, as mail became global in its reach, Dave Presotto took charge and
11986 brought order to communications with a grab-bag of external networks
11992 Mail was written in 1978 by Kurt Shoens and developed as part of the
11995 distribution until 1995.
11996 Mail has then seen further development in open source
11998 variants, noticeably by Christos Zoulas in
12000 Based upon this Nail, later Heirloom Mailx, was developed by Gunnar
12001 Ritter in the years 2000 until 2008.
12002 Since 2012 S-nail is maintained by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso.
12003 This man page is derived from
12004 .Dq The Mail Reference Manual
12005 that was originally written by Kurt Shoens.
12011 .An "Kurt Shoens" ,
12012 .An "Edward Wang" ,
12013 .An "Keith Bostic" ,
12014 .An "Christos Zoulas" ,
12015 .An "Gunnar Ritter" ,
12016 .An "Steffen Nurpmeso" Aq Mt s-nail-users@lists.sourceforge.net
12018 .Mt s-mailx@sdaoden.eu ) .
12021 .\" .Sh CAVEATS {{{
12024 \*(ID Interrupting an operation via
12028 is often problematic: many library functions cannot deal with the
12030 that this software (still) performs.
12033 The SMTP and POP3 protocol support of \*(UA is very basic.
12034 Also, if it fails to contact its upstream SMTP server, it will not make
12035 further attempts to transfer the message at a later time (setting
12040 If this is a concern, it might be better to set up a local SMTP server
12041 that is capable of message queuing.
12047 After deleting some message of a POP3 mailbox the header summary falsely
12048 claims that there are no messages to display, one needs to perform
12049 a scroll or dot movement to restore proper state.
12051 In threaded display a power user may encounter crashes very
12052 occasionally (this is may and very).
12056 in the source repository lists future directions.