Linux in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition

Name

vacation

Synopsis

                  vacationvacation [options] [user]

Automatically return a mail message to the sender announcing that you are on vacation.

Use vacation with no options to initialize the vacation mechanism. The process performs several steps.

1. Creates a .forward file in your home directory. The .forward file contains:

   \user, "|/usr/bin/vacation user"

   user is your login name. The action of this file is to actually deliver the mail to user (i.e., you) and to run the incoming mail through vacation.

2. Creates the .vacation.pag and .vacation.dir files. These files keep track of who has sent you messages so that they receive only one “I’m on vacation” message from you per week.

3. Starts an editor to edit the contents of .vacation.msg. The contents of this file are mailed back to whomever sends you mail. Within its body, $subject is replaced with the contents of the incoming message’s Subject line.

Remove or rename the .forward file to disable vacation processing.

Options

The -a and -r options are used within a .forward file; see the example.

-a alias

Mail addressed to alias is actually mail for the user and should produce an automatic reply.

-i

Reinitialize the .vacation.pag and .vacation.dir files. Use this right before leaving for your next vacation.

-r interval

By default, no more than one message per week is sent to any sender; this option changes that interval. interval is a number with a trailing s, m, h, d, or w indicating seconds, minutes, hours, days, or weeks, respectively. If interval ...