vacation - reply to mail automatically

SYNOPSIS

vacation [ -I | -i ]
vacation  [ -j ] [ -a alias ] [ -tN ] [ -r ] [ -?  ] [ -h virtual
host name ] username

DESCRIPTION

vacation automatically replies to incoming mail. The reply is contained in the file .vacation.msg in your home directory. The vacation program run interactively will create and/or edit a .vacation.msg file in your home directory. The old .vacation.msg will be backed up to .vacation.old file. Type vacation with no arguments.

For example, the message created by vacation is:

Subject: away from my mail
From:  smith (via the vacation program)
I will not be reading my mail for a while. Your
mail regarding "$SUBJECT" will be
read when I return.

The .vacation.msg file should include a header with at least a 'Subject:'line (it should not contain a 'To:' line and need not contain a 'From:' line, since these are generated automatically).

The fields 'From', 'From:' and 'Reply-To:' are evaluated in the following order: If there is a 'Reply-To:', and the option -r is given, then its entry is accepted. Otherwise, the entry of the 'From:' field is taken. Should this entry lack a complete domain address (e.g. user@site instead of user@site.domain), vacation evaluates the 'From' field, converting the contained UUCP bang path into a domain style address. If this fails too, vacation gives up.

If the string $SUBJECT appears in the .vacation.msg file, it is replaced with the subject of the original message when the reply is sent.

No message is sent if the 'To:' or the 'Cc:' line does not list the user to whom the original message was sent or one of a number of aliases for them, if the initial From line includes one of the strings -request@, postmaster, uucp, mailer-daemon, mailer or -relay or if a 'Precedence: bulk' or 'Precedence: junk' or 'Precedence: list' line is included in the header. The search for special senders is made case-independant.

Vacation will also ignore any mails with RFC-2369 mail-list keywords.

OPTIONS

-I Initialize the .vacation.db file and start vacation.
If the -I flag is not specified, and a user argument is given, vacation reads the first line from the standard input (for a 'From:' line, no colon). If absent, it produces an error message.

The following options may be specified:

-a alias
Indicate that alias is one of the valid aliases for the user running vacation, so that mail addressed to that alias generates a reply.
-j Do not check whether the recipient appears in the
To: or the Cc: line. Reply always.
-tN Change the interval between repeat replies to the same sender. N is the number of days between replies. Default is one week.
-r Use 'Reply-To:' Header
If there is a 'Reply-To:' header, send the automatic reply to the address given there. Otherwise, use the 'From:' entry.
-h hostname for virtual domain processing
-? issue short usage line.

USAGE

The vacation program, will create a .forward file in your home directory containing a line of the form:

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

where username is your login name. The original .forward will be backed up to .forward.old file.

Then type in the command:

vacation -I

To stop vacation, remove the .forward file, or move it to a new name.

If vacation is run with no arguments, it will create a new .vacation.msg file for you, using the editor specified by the VISUAL or EDITOR environment variable, or vi(1) if neither of those environment variables are set. If a .forward file is not present in your home directory, it creates it for you, and automatically performs a 'vacation -I' function, turning on vacation.

FILES

$HOME/.forward
$HOME/.vacation.msg

A list of senders is kept in the file .vacation.db in your home directory.

AUTHOR

vacation is Copyright (c) 1983 by Eric P. Allman, University of Berkeley, California, and Copyright (c) 1993 by Harald Milz (hm@seneca.ix.de). Tiny patches 1998 by Mark Seuffert (moak@pirate.de). Now maintained by Sean Rima (sean@tcob1.net)