.TH VACATION 1L LOCAL
.SH NAME
vacation \- reply to mail automatically
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B vacation
[
.B \-\^I
]
.br
.B vacation
[
.B \-\^l
]
.br
.B vacation
[
.B \-\^j
]
[
.BI \-\^a alias
]
[
[
.BI \-\^f file
]
[
.BI \-\^t N
]
.I username
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B vacation
replies to incoming mail.  The intended use is in a
.B \&.forward
file.  The
.B \&.forward
file must exist in your home directory and contain a line similar to:
.IP
\e\f2username\fP, "|/usr/local/bin/vacation \f2username\fP"
.PP
where
.I username
is your login name.  Other
.B vacation
options, such as -a, -f, -j, and -t, can be included
to tailor vacation to your liking.
.PP
If
.B vacation
is run with no arguments, it permits you to interactively turn
.B vacation
on or off.  It creates a
.B \&.vacation.msg
file for you, or edits an existing one, using the editor specified by the
.SM VISUAL
or
.SM EDITOR
environment variable, or
.BR vi
if neither of those environment variables are set.  If a
\f3\%\&.forward\f1
file is present in your home directory, it asks whether you want
to remove it and turn off
.BR vacation .
If it is not present in your home directory, it creates
it for you, and automatically performs a
.BR "vacation \-\^I" ,
turning on
.BR vacation .
.PP
.B vacation
expects a file
.B \&.vacation.msg
in your home directory containing a message to be sent back
to each sender.  If the string
.I $SUBJECT
appears in the
.B \&.vacation.msg
file, it is replaced with the subject of the original message when the
reply is sent.  An example of a 
.B \&.vacation.msg
file follows:
.IP
I will not be reading my mail for a while.
Your mail regarding "$SUBJECT" will be read when I return.
.IP
  -Santa (sclaus@north.pole)
.PP
.I
.BR sendmail
includes the 
.B From: 
and
.B Subject: 
lines automatically.
.PP
This message is only sent once a week to each unique
sender.
The people who have sent you messages are kept in the files
.B \&.vacation.pag
and
.B \&.vacation.dir
in your home directory.
The
.B \-\^l
option lists the contents of these files.
The
.B \-\^I
option initializes these files
and should be executed before you modify your
.B \&.forward
file.
.PP
To avoid sending vacation notices to mailing lists and well\-known users,
.B vacation
will not send a reply if any of the following conditions are met:
.IP
The initial 
.B From: 
line includes the string 
.RB \*Q \-REQUEST@ \*U.
.IP
A 
.RB \*Q Precedence: \f2bulk\f1 \*U
or
.RB \*Q Precedence: \f2junk\f1 \*U
line is included in the header.
.IP
The
.B To:
or the
.B Cc:
line does not list your login name or one of a number of aliases for it.
.IP
Mail is from one of these well-known users: daemon, postmaster,
mailer\-daemon, mailer, operator, or root.
.IP
Mail is from one of the users listed in the optional exemption file, specified
with the \-f option.
.PP
.B vacation
options are:
.TP 10
.BI \-\^a alias
Indicate that
.I alias
is one of the valid aliases for your login name.  Mail addressed to the
alias generates a vacation reply.  Use \-a repetitively to specify multiple
aliases.  An example is "\-aSantaClaus \-aSanta" for the login name of sclaus.
Mail addressed to SantaClaus, Santa, or sclaus results in a vacation reply.
The case of letters is ignored in making comparisons.
.TP
.BI \-\^f file
Do not send vacation replies to the user names listed in
.I file.
User names are white-space separated.
.TP
.B \-\^j
Do not check whether the recipient appears in the
.B To:
or the
.B Cc:
line.  In other words, send replies to users even if the mail is not directly
addressed to your login name or an alias for it.
.TP
.B \-\^I
Initialize the .forward, .vacation.msg, .vacation.dir, and .vacation.pag
files.
.TP
.B \-\^l
List the contents of the .vacation.dir and .vacation.pag files.  This lists
the users who received your vacation notice.
.TP
.BI \-\^t N
Change the interval between repeat replies to the same sender.
The default is "1w" (one week).
A trailing
.BR s ,
.BR m ,
.BR h ,
.BR d ,
or
.B w
scales
.I N
to seconds, minutes, hours, days, or weeks, respectively.
.SH FILES
.nf
.ta 5n 35n
\&.forward\f1	Forward file
\&.vacation.msg\f1	Reply automatically sent out
\&.vacation.pag and \&.vacation.dir	List of senders
.fi
.SH SEE ALSO
vi(1)
.br
sendmail(8)
.SH AUTHOR
Larry Wall <lwall@netlabs.com> did the original work.  Tom Christiansen
<tchrist@convex.com> upgraded and expanded the program.  Rex Pruess
<rpruess@yoyo.weeg.uiowa.edu> tinkered with it still more, and best yet,
wrote this man page.