| BIFF(1) | General Commands Manual | BIFF(1) |
biff — be notified
if mail arrives and who it is from
biff |
[ny] |
Biff informs the system whether you want
to be notified when mail arrives during the current terminal session.
Options supported by biff:
When mail notification is enabled, the header and first few lines
of the message will be printed on your screen whenever mail arrives. A
“biff y” command is often included in
the file .login or .profile
to be executed at each login.
Biff operates asynchronously via the
comsat(8) service. If that service is not enabled,
biff will not do anything. In that case, or for
synchronous notification, use the MAIL variable of
sh(1) or the mail variable of
csh(1).
The biff command appeared in
4.0BSD.
su(1), and biff don't seem to get on too well.
This is probably due to the tty still being owned by the person using su.
This can result in “Permission denied”
messages when attempting to change the biff status of your session.
Please report bugs to netbug@ftp.uk.linux.org including diffs/patches, compiler error logs or as complete a bug report as is possible.
| July 31, 1999 | Linux NetKit (0.17-pre-20000412) |