Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.unix.admin:9631 comp.unix.bsd:11670 comp.unix.wizards:28865 alt.unix.wizards:121
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.wizards,alt.unix.wizards
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!llyene!triton!robert
From: robert@triton.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Angelino)
Subject: How does finger get info about mail???
Message-ID: <1993Mar14.000449.24954@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov
Nntp-Posting-Host: triton.jpl.nasa.gov
Reply-To: robert@triton.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
Organization: JPL
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 00:04:49 GMT
Lines: 33
BACKGROUND:
SunOS 4.1.2. SPARC 2.
all,
When I do a "finger username" I get some nice goodies about
username. One thing I'm baffled about is the mail information it
displays. How does it do this?? The manual pages say the following:
When one or more name arguments are given, more detailed
information is given for each name specified, whether they
are logged in or not. A name may be a first or last name,
or an account name. Information is presented in a multi-
line format, and includes, in addition to the information
mentioned above:
the user's home directory and login shell
the time they logged in if they are currently logged
in, or the time they last logged in if they are not, as
well as the terminal or host from which they logged in
and, if a terminal, the comment field in /etc/ttytab
for that terminal
the last time they received mail, and the last time
they read their mail
any plan contained in the file .plan in the user's home
directory
and any project on which they are working described in
the file .project (also in that directory)
What process does finger go through to get the mail information?? Does
it look at the access time of /var/spool/mail/username or is it getting
it from somewhere else??
-curious