My question was:
> Hi all!
> As far as I understand, biff sets the execute bit on the terminal it
> invoked in. Subsequently, when mail arrives, a UDP datagram is sent to
> the biff port invoking comsat and prompting it to write on terminal.
> So far the manpages. But who sends that datagram?
The answer is kind of obvious, it is the local delivery agent, which normally
is /bin/mail.
The reason that I asked is that if you hub the mail around one machine, all
local delivery will be made on that machine (the whole point of the
exercise...) and biff style notification will not work on the other machines.
I wrote a small hack that relays the aforementioned datagram to a host
specified in the user database, see
http://www.physto.se/~simon/rcomsat/ if
you have a similar problem. (Yes, I know that there most methods, except for
biff, looks at the file modification date etc etc but the point of this
exercise was to achieve identical function for the users).
Thanks to: Spider Boardman <spider_at_Orb.Nashua.NH.US>
Simon Tardell.
Simon Tardell, voice +46 8 162688 fax +46 8 347817
Fysikum, Stockholms universitet simon_at_physto.se, simon_at_tardell.se
Received on Fri Nov 07 1997 - 16:31:35 NZDT