UPASFS(4)UPASFS(4)NAME
upasfs, startupasfs - mail file server
SYNOPSIS
upas/fs [ -f mailbox ] [ -bnps ] [ -m mntpoint ]
startupasfs
DESCRIPTION
Fs is a user level file system that reads mailboxes and presents them
as a file system. A user normally starts fs in his/her profile after
starting plumber(4) and before starting a window system, such as rio(1)
or acme(1). The file system is used by nedmail and acme(1)'s mail
reader to parse messages. Fs also generates plumbing messages used by
biff and faces(1) to provide mail announcements.
Startupasfs is a shell script suitable for use in one's profile. It
runs fs -s for the invoking user if none is already running, and always
mounts the user's posted fs on /mail/fs.
The mailbox itself becomes a directory under /mail/fs. Each message in
the mailbox becomes a numbered directory in the mailbox directory, and
each attachment becomes a numbered directory in the message directory.
Since an attachment may itself be a mail message, this structure can
recurse ad nauseam.
Each message and attachment directory contains the files:
body the message minus the RFC822 style headers
cc the address(es) from the CC: header
date the date in the message, or if none, the time of delivery
digest an SHA1 digest of the message contents
disposition inline or file
filename a name to use to file an attachment
from the from address in the From: header, or if none, the
address on the envelope.
header the RFC822 headers
info described below, essentially a summary of the header info
inreplyto contents of the in-reply-to: header
mimeheader the mime headers
raw the undecoded MIME message
rawbody the undecoded message body
rawheader the undecoded message header
replyto the address to send any replies to.
subject the contents of the subject line
to the address(es) from the To: line.
type the MIME content type
unixheader the envelope header from the mailbox
The info file contains the following information, one item per line.
Lists of addresses are single-space separated.
sender address
recipient addresses
cc addresses
reply address
envelope date
subject
MIME content type
MIME disposition
filename
SHA1 digest
bcc addresses
in-reply-to: contents
RFC822 date
message senders
message id
number of lines in body
Deleting message directories causes the message to be removed from the
mailbox.
The mailbox is reread and the structure updated whenever the mailbox
changes. Message directories are not renumbered.
The file /mail/fs/ctl is used to direct fs to open/close new mailboxes
or to delete groups of messages atomically. The messages that can be
written to this file are:
open path mboxname
opens a new mailbox. path is the file to open, and mboxname is
the name that appears under /mail/fs.
close mboxname
close mboxname. The close takes affect only after all files
open under /mail/fs/mboxname have been closed.
delete mboxname number ...
Delete the messages with the given numbers from mboxname.
The options are:
-ffile use file as the mailbox instead of the default, /mail/box/user‐
name/mbox.
-b stands for biffing. Each time new mail is received, a message
is printed to standard output containing the sender address,
subject, and number of bytes. It is intended for people telnet‐
ting in who want mail announcements.
-n Don't open a mailbox initially. Overridden by -f.
-p turn off plumbing. Unless this is specified, fs sends a message
to the plumb port, seemail, from source mailfs for each message
received or deleted. The message contains the attributes
sender=<contents of from file>, filetype=mail, mailtype=deleted
or new, and length=<message length in bytes>. The contents of
the message is the full path name of the directory representing
the message.
-s causes fs to post itself in /srv with a name of the form
/srv/upasfs.user.
-m specifies a mount point other than /mail/fs.
Fs will exit once all references to its directory have disappeared.
Fs interprets mailbox file names of the form /proto/host/user to mean
access an account on host using the given protocol. Authentication is
delegated to factotum(4). The final /user may be omitted, in which
case the user name is gleaned from the key held by factotum. The fol‐
lowing protocols are supported:
pop cleartext POP with password authentication
apop cleartext POP with challenge-response (APOP) authentication
pops
poptls TLS-encrypted POP with password authentication
apops
apoptls
TLS-encrypted POP with challenge-response (APOP) authentication
imap cleartext IMAP
imaps TLS-encrypted IMAP
The two IMAP protocols allow an optional fourth field specifying a
mailbox name, for example /imap/server/user/stored.
Poptls and apoptls connect to port 110 in plaintext and start TLS using
the POP STLS command. Pops and apops connect to port 995 and start TLS
before initiating the POP conversation. Imaps connects to port 993 and
starts TLS before initiating the IMAP conversation. There should prob‐
ably be an imaptls protocol as well. (Imaptls would connect to port
143 in plaintext and start TLS using the IMAP STARTTLS command.
(That's the nice thing about standards—there's so many to choose
from.))
FILES
/mail/box/*
mail directories
/mail/box/*/mbox
mailbox files
/mail/box/*/L.reading
mutual exclusion lock for multiple mbox readers
/mail/box/*/L.mbox
mutual exclusion lock for altering mbox
SOURCE
/sys/src/cmd/upas/fs
/rc/bin/startupasfs
SEE ALSOaliasmail(8), faces(1), filter(1), mail(1), marshal(1), mlmgr(1), ned‐
mail(1), qer(8), rewrite(6), send(8), upasfs(4)UPASFS(4)
