From patlee@panix.com Fri Nov 18 04:34:44 1994 Path: panix!patlee.nyc.ny.us!patlee From: patlee@panix.com (Patrick Lee) Newsgroups: panix.questions Subject: Re: showing mail status via finger to panix? Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 07:18:38 EDT Organization: Stuyvesant H.S. Alumni Assoc. Web, http://www.panix.com/stuy Lines: 27 Distribution: us Message-ID: References: <3adttt$oh0@panix3.panix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.7.7.17 X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #4] tobiasj@panix.com (Jenny Tobias) writes: > > Would like to check for new mail at Panix via finger. The default seems > to be no information about mail. Tried the chmod settings recommended in > a previous post, but there's no effect. Used setup command for general > finger settings but also no effect. If there is a way to do this, please > post. If you use procmail to process your incoming mail, you can simulate this. For example, my .plan file is appended with the date/time whenever a new message appears in my $MAIL mail box. This is what is appeared at the bottom of my .plan file: Times at which messages were received: Thu Nov 17 06:19:58 EST 1994 This way, I can tell when I received mail & how many. Whenever I login to Panix, my login script copies a fresh copy of .plan file so this list won't get too long. Feel free to look at my .procmailrc file for the particular rule. It is somewhere towards the bottom of the file. -- Patrick Lee [Internet: patlee@panix.com] [CompuServe: 74003,2566] Stuyvesant H.S. Alumni Assoc. Home Page http://www.panix.com/stuy From clays@panix.com Fri Mar 31 07:36:17 1995 Path: panix!not-for-mail From: clays@panix.com (Clay Shirky) Newsgroups: panix.questions Subject: Re: more questions about plan Date: 31 Mar 1995 06:55:54 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC Lines: 37 Message-ID: <3lgqka$olo@panix.com> References: <3lefkk$qv7@panix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com In <3lefkk$qv7@panix.com> cinader@panix.com (Martha Cinader) writes: >Thank you Mara for your answer. My questions now are what is the etiquette >for informing people that they should finger my account, is it only panix >people who can finger me or can I suggest it also on the newsgroups that >I post announcements on? Panicians can finger you by typing 'finger cinander'. Other folks on the net can finger you by typing 'finger cinander @panix.com'. This is a standard net protocol - you do not need to note explicitly that you are fingerable unless you are offering some particular information via your plan file that you wnat people to be able to get at. If that is the case, then simply adding the line 'finger cinander@panix.com for more information on the Foobar Archives' or whatever will let people know its there. > Also I don't really want people to get into my >mail but I don't recall being given that option when I set up the plan. >What should I do about that? I assume you mean that you dont want people to be able to see whether you have unread mail or not. From des's pfinger manual: If the matched user's mail directory (~/.mailspool) is world-searchable ("x") information about the user's mail is displayed Going to a Unix prompt and typing 'chmod 700 ~/.mailspool' should turn off this function by making the access times of your mailbox (which is /net/u/12/c/cinader/.mailspool, or ~/.mailspool for short) unreadable by anyone but you. man pfinger for more details. -- Clay Shirky