Vacation Auto-Reply

• Forward explains how to use forwarding, available on most unix shells.
• Mail Tools page lets you turn vacation or forwarding on or off.
  • source code
• VacationMail by MacSOS for Mac or Windows "is a simplified GUI tool to allow inexperienced computer users to configure their Solaris UNIX POP email server to send automatic reply emails while they are away. This programme configures the files required for the Solaris '/usr/bin/vacation' application without the user having to understand telnet clients, shell variables or vi editors. The vacation email service can also be disabled using this application."
• Source code for vacation:
  • The BSD Vacation V2 Project by Greg A. Woods. "I've re-written the vacation program that originally came with Sendmail. My new version tries much harder to be a proper Mail User Agent as defined by RFC 2822. It replies as to your mail as you would, and keeps a little database of recent correspondents it has sent a reply to so that it can avoid sending multiple annoying replies to every message someone sends to you, resending a new reply only every week or so. It also avoids sending replies to mailing list mail, bounces of your own mail, etc. This version has many enhancements and many bug fixes over the original."
  • Vacation perl script source: Can be installed just for your unix shell account, but easier if you can get your ISP to install it systemwide.
    • What this version adds that many versions do not have:
    • Ability to specify an "exempt" file, a text file containing addresses that should not receive an autoreply. (I would use this so as to not bother my friends -- If I want them to know I'll be gone, I can just e-mail them directly; usually I use vacation to let random people know I'm busy, and end up having my friends think they should not e-mail me! But by using the exempt file, I can make sure my friends don't get the autoreply.)
    • Ability to specify a default interval other than one week. I.e. if someone sends you 5 messages during a week, they only get an autoreply for the first message. After a week, if they send you another message, they will get another autoreply. This version allows you to change the time interval from one week to anything as short as 1 second (not recommended -- could lead to infinite loops if they also have an autoreply) to any number of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months.
  • vacation "man" page: This is a specially formatted document that, when installed properly, is read using the "man vacation" command from your unix shell account
  • older vacation source code that I found at this ftp site
  • There also appear to be miscellaneous versions on ftp sites. Doing an "archie" search will find them.
• Perl script using .procmailrc instead of .forward

How to set up a vacation auto-reply on your unix shell account (using eudora@example.com):

1. Telnet (or dialin directly with a serial terminal program if that is possible) to your shell account.
   • If you need telnet software, see:
   • Mac OS
   • Windows
2. login
   1. You will first need to tell your telnet application to connect you to example.com
   2. After being connected, you may have to hit return once or twice
   3. When it asks for your username, enter your username (mine would be eudora)
   4. When it asks for your password, enter your password (******)
3. at the prompt type:
   • $ man vacation (don't type the $; it represents the prompt)
4. read the instructions given to you.
   
5. If the vacation on your system is anything like mine, you will then do:
   • Initialize vacation for your account.
     • $ vacation -I
6. edit a file called .forward as recommended by the "man vacation" instructions. Pico is a user-friendly text editor. In order to do so, try typing:
   • $ pico .forward
   • Note: below is a standard example:
   • \eudora, "|vacation eudora"
   • Note2: but the instructions you were given when you typed man vacation should be taken as controlling as opposed to my example. and you may have additional options you can insert inbetween the word vacation and the second andrew.
   • Note3: see the forward page for examples of how you can combine various addresses into the .forward file, even if you are using vacation.
7. edit a file called .vacation.msg that has the vacation message in it.
   • $ pico .vacation.msg
   • Note: you may be able to put in headers at the top of this file, such as:
   • From: eudora@example.com (if you are doing this from the account eudora@example.com, this is not crucial, but otherwise quite handy to be able to control the from address on the auto-reply).
   • Subject: thanks for writing (or whatever you want)
   • X-Mailer: Vacation auto-reply program (etc.)
   • Note2: you may be able to refer to the date and subject of the original message in your autoreply; check the instructions you were given when you typed man vacation
   • Example: $DATE or $SUBJECT should act as variables to insert date and subject of message in autoreply
8. Test it. (send a message to yourself, or have a friend do so)
9. Go on vacation; have fun.
10. Return.
11. Telnet to shell account and log in.
12. you may be able to see who was sent vacation messages while you were gone; see the "man vacation" instructions for details.
13. delete the .forward file:
    $ rm .forward
14. you can leave the .vacation.msg as it is for next time you want to use vacation (you can still edit it next time to make changes.)

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