[comp.unix.questions] Sending personal messages

bakkac@econ.vu.nl (Dick G. / Anton B.) (09/08/87)

Who can tell me how to send personal mail to one
specific user on another (remote) system ?
Which commands do you have to use ???
It must be simple , but we have no manual so .......
Who helps us out ???

Dick Groenhof & Rene Baart

gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (09/11/87)

In article <108@vuecon.econ.vu.nl> bakkac@econ.vu.nl (Dick G. / Anton B.) writes:
>Who can tell me how to send personal mail to one
>specific user on another (remote) system ?
>Which commands do you have to use ???
>It must be simple , but we have no manual so .......
>Who helps us out ???

The commands vary from system to system.  Usually there is a "mail"
command, sometimes a "mailx" or "Mail" or "send" command, occasionally
some other message-handling interface.  The simplest use is usually
"mail destination" where you have to replace "destination" by the
correct address of the intended recipient.  Unfortunately, there is
no universally-agreed upon form for such an address.  The most common
forms are "site!person" or "site1!site2!...!site!person" for UUCP mail
and "person@domain" for Internet mail.  Unfortunately there are other
variations, and if the destination is not on the same network, you may
have to resort to strangely constructed destination names to satisfy
the requirements of the systems that act as "gateways" between networks.

As to not having a manual:  Usually, there is an on-line manual
available under the name "man", e.g. "man mail" to read documentation
for the "mail" command.  Otherwise, you should contact whoever supplied
your system (or whoever gave you an account on the system) and obtain
documentation from them.  It is hard to believe that documentation is
completely unavailable.  (If so, let us know what brand of system you
bought so we can all avoid making the same mistake.)