VACATION(1)             System General Commands Manual             VACATION(1)

NAME
     vacation - return ``I am not here'' indication

SYNOPSIS
     vacation -i [-r interval]
     vacation [-a alias] [login]

DESCRIPTION
     vacation returns a message to the sender of a message telling them that
     you are currently not reading your mail.  The intended use is in a
     .forward file.  For example, your .forward file might have:

           \eric, "|/usr/loca/bin/vacation -a allman eric"

     which would send messages to you (assuming your login name was eric) and
     reply to any messages for ``eric'' or ``allman''.

     The options are as follows:

     -a alias
             Handle messages for alias in the same manner as those received
             for the user's login name.

     -i      Initialize the vacation database files.  It should be used before
             you modify your .forward file.

     -r      Set the reply interval to interval days.  The default is one
             week.  An interval of ``0'' means that a reply is sent to each
             message, and an interval of ``infinite'' (actually, any non-
             numeric character) will never send more than one reply.  It
             should be noted that intervals of ``0'' are quite dangerous, as
             it allows mailers to get into ``I am on vacation'' loops.

     If login is not supplied then the full canonical username (domain+user)
     will be used from the user database as login.

     No message will be sent unless login (or an alias supplied using the -a
     option) is part of either the ``To:'' or ``Cc:'' headers of the mail.  No
     messages from ``???-REQUEST'', ``Postmaster'', ``UUCP'', ``MAILER'', or
     ``MAILER-DAEMON'' will be replied to (where these strings are case insen-
     sitive) nor is a notification sent if a ``Precedence: bulk'',
     ``Precedence: list'', or ``Precedence: junk'' line is included in the
     mail headers.  The people who have sent you messages are maintained as a
     db(3) database in the file .vacation.db in your home directory.

     vacation expects a file .vacation.msg, in your home directory, containing
     a message to be sent back to each sender.  It should be an entire message
     (including headers).  For example, it might contain:

           From: eric@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Eric Allman)
           Subject: I am on vacation
           Delivered-By-The-Graces-Of: The Vacation program
           Precedence: bulk

           I am on vacation until July 22.
           If you have something urgent,
           please contact Keith Bostic .
           --eric

     Any occurrence of the string $SUBJECT in .vacation.msg will be replaced
     by the subject of the message that triggered the vacation program.

     vacation reads the incoming message from standard input, checking the
     message headers for either the UNIX ``From'' line or a ``Return-Path''
     header to determine the sender.  If both are present the sender from the
     ``Return-Path'' header is used.

     Fatal errors, such as calling vacation with incorrect arguments, or with
     non-existent logins, are logged in the system log file, using syslog(3).

NOTES
     The above mail addresses are examples only. Eric and Keith have different
     mail addresses currently.

FILES
     ~/.vacation.db   database file
     ~/.vacation.msg  message to send

SEE ALSO
     syslog(3), sendmail(8), procmail(1)

HISTORY
     The vacation command appeared in 4.3BSD.

BSD                              June 18, 2004                             BSD