🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <01GTTUGKA3HC8X24W7@Orion.YorkU.CA>, AS362472@Orion.YorkU.CA
wrote:
> 
> I've noticed that some people have configured their (e-mail) account
> to automatically acknowledge mail received when they are away for an 
> extended period of time.  How does one go about setting up such a
> mechanism?  I have a colleague who would like to have her e-mail
> automatically acknowledged when it arrives in her account. My colleague is
> on a VM/CMS system, but I would also like to know how to accomplish the
> same thing on a Unix system.
> 
> Thanks for any assistance received.
> 
> Rick Broadhead   as362472@orion.yorku.ca
> 
>       
> 

How to do this depends what system you are using.  In
versions of UNIX derived from the Berkeley (BSD) stuff,
there's a program called "vacation" for this job.  However,
the documentation for it on my system is in the usual
UNIX gobbledegook.  I tried to set it up once to do
two things: save a copy in my mailbox (so I'd see it
on my return) and send a message to the sender that
I was on vacation and would reply when I got back.

However, even though I thought it was set up exactly
as the docs said, test messages got bounced with
"unknown mailer" errors.  Based on my past experience
every time I try something in UNIX for the first time,
I could probably figure out what was wrong in half a day
or so.  Since I had other things to do before heading off
to the ski resort, I gave up.  Perhaps the next time I'm
about to leave for vacation I'll set aside half a day
to figure this one out.  I probably missed some d---d
punctuation mark or something; I know it *can* be done...

Ain't UNIX wonderful?  :-) :-) ;-}


Matt Healy
"I pretend to be a network administrator; the lab
 net pretends to work!"

matt@wardsgi.med.yale.edu