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MAILHELP(1)							   MAILHELP(1)

NAME
       maildist, mailhelp, maillist, mailpatch - mailagent's commands

SYNOPSIS
       maildist address system [ version ]
       mailhelp [ address ]
       maillist [ address ]
       mailpatch address system version patchlist

DESCRIPTION
       These  commands are not intended to be run directly by a user. They may
       appear in any mail whose subject is set to Command. Such a mail will be
       processed  by  the mailagent(1), which will extract all lines beginning
       with @SH, followed by one of the above commands.	 The  mailagent	 first
       sets environment variables that will be used by every commands.

       Maildist is used to mail a whole distribution to the given address. The
       version number may be ommitted if the system has no  version  specified
       !!   Maildist  looks for the Spool/distribs file to find where the dis‐
       tribution is located. If it has been archived, the file name  extension
       is used to guess how the archive will be restored:

       .cpio	 archive is a cpio archive
       .tar	 archive is in tar format
       .cpio.Z	 compressed cpio archive
       .tar.Z	 compressed tar archive

       Note that on file systems with short file names, the final .Z extension
       could be dropped. Therefore, compressed archives	 must  be  explicitely
       stated in the Spool/distribs file.

       Once the directory is found (or extracted), maildist looks for a .pack‐
       age file. If one is found, then it  is  assumed	this  distribution  is
       under  control  of  the	dist 3.0 package, and the makedist commmand is
       called to actually mirror the source tree (makedist being part of  dist
       3.0).

       Otherwise,  it  looks  for  a  MANIFEST file. If it finds one, only the
       files listed therein will be sent. Otherwise, all  the  files  will  be
       sent,  excepted	the  binary executables and object files, the RCS sub-
       directories or RCS files, the private U subdirectory and	 the  .package
       file, any core file or files in a bugs subdirectory.

       Then,  the  following  algorithm	 is used: if no RCS file is found, the
       file is sent as-is. Otherwise, we look for a defined 'lastpat'  symbol.
       If  it  is  found,  the corresponding revision is checked-out and sent.
       Otherwise, the last-revision on the default branch is exctracted,  pro‐
       vided that the corresponding working file is not found.

       The  maildist  command  will not work if the system is tagged as an old
       one (with an o in the patches column of the distribs file).  A  message
       will  be sent back to the user, explaining that only patches are avail‐
       able.

       Mailhelp sends help to the address (if ommitted, the return path of the
       mail  is	 used).	 The  help text is found in Spool/agenthelp. It should
       have been correctly set in the installation procedure, as explained  in
       the mailagent(1) manual page.

       Maillist sends the list of available distributions, with current patch‐
       levels if necessary. The Spool/distribs and  Spool/proglist  files  are
       both used to build the list.

       Mailpatch  sends one or more patches for a maintained distribution. The
       directory or the archive is found by scanning Spool/distribs. The  bugs
       sub-directory  must then hold the available patches. The patches may be
       stored in compressed form (with the  ending  .Z),  as  mailpatch	 knows
       about them and will uncompress the patch before sending.

       Patches	for  old  systems  are kept in a separate directory, either in
       normal or in compressed form. If the version number of the  old	system
       is  x.y,	 then  the  directory must be named bugs-x.y and placed in the
       root directory of the system, just like bugs is.

       Whenever the user asks for an old system, mailpatch  inserts  a	little
       note giving the latest version number for that system.

NOTE
       For  a  more  accurate  description  of these commands (user's point of
       vue), you may want to have a look at the help  file  or	send  help  to
       yourself using the mailhelp command.

FORWARDING
       When the author of a package wishes to relinquish all maintenance duty,
       he is most often stuck by the weight of	the  past:  Configure  scripts
       have  his  e-mail address hardwired (see unit MailAuthor.U) and Command
       messages for package registration and/or patch requests	will  continue
       to reach him.

       The  answer to that is to leave a .forward file at the top of the pack‐
       age tree and commands will automatically forge new requests and forward
       them  to	 the  address  listed  in the .forward file. Now the recipient
       surely needs a mailagent at  the	 other	end  to	 deal  with  forwarded
       requests!

       Only  plain  e-mail address(es) are allowed in the .forward. The "|com‐
       mand" processing hook is not supported, since it's not  sendmail	 which
       interprets that file but the command itself.

       Forwarding applies to maildist, mailpatch and package commands only.

FILES
       ~/.mailagent	   configuration file for mailagent.
       /usr/share/mailagent
			   directory holding templates and samples.
       Spool/agenthelp	   help file
       Spool/distribs	   distribution list
       Spool/proglist	   comments for available distributions
       Spool/plsave	   records patchlevel of archived distributions
       Log/agentlog	   mailagent's log file

BUGS
       The  proglist  file  ought to make a distinction between different ver‐
       sions of a same system.

AUTHOR
       Raphael Manfredi <Raphael_Manfredi@pobox.com>

SEE ALSO
       mailagent(1), package(1).

				      ram			   MAILHELP(1)
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