Postmaster Guidelines and Procedures

	Reading the Mail

Starting to read the postmaster's mailbox

You will need to establish 2 (yes, two!) secure telnet connections to the computer where mail is processed (list.mail.virginia.edu). These are needed so that you can read the postmaster's mailbox in one connection, do commands in the other connection. You may want to establish a third connection to list.mail.virginia.edu to access the mailing list account, but you can also choose to wait until you find a need to login to this account to make this connection.

All commands entered after a prompt on list.mail must be followed by pressing the Enter or Return key on your computer's keyboard.

Connection 1 to the list.mail (upostmst login id):

Establish secure telnet connection to:	list.mail.virginia.edu
You are prompted to login:	The login id is: upostmst
You are prompted for a password	Use the current upostmst password
You will see something similar to:	Last login: Thu Nov 11 2004 17:58:07 Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.8 Generic February 2000 Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.8 Generic February 2000
Enter terminal type [default is vt100]:	Press the Enter/Return key to use a VT100 terminal type; otherwise enter your terminal type
Enter preferred editor [default is vi]:	You may use: vi pico or jove as your preferred editor
upostmst-list: /home/upostmst $	When you see this prompt, you have logged in successfully

Connection 2 to the list.mail (upostmst login id):

Repeat what you see above to establish the 2nd connection to list.mail.

Connection 3 to the list.mail (maliman login id):

Establish secure telnet connection to:	list.mail.virginia.edu
You are prompted to login:	The login id is: mailman
You are prompted for a password	Use the current mailman/list password
You will see something similar to:	Last login: Thu Nov 11 2004 19:16:27 Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.8 Generic February 2000 Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.8 Generic February 2000
Enter terminal type [default is vt100]:	Press the Enter/Return key to use a VT100 terminal type; otherwise enter your terminal type
Enter preferred editor [default is vi]:	You may use: vi pico or jove as your preferred editor
mailman-list: /home/mailman $	When you see this prompt, you have logged in successfully

You may want to consider carefully before using the ls command in any of the subdirectories for the mailman account: sometimes there are many, many files in a mailman directory.

Opening the postmaster's mailbox

At the prompt:upostmst-list: /home/upostmst $ Type:	cksize
You will see something similar to:	-rw------- 1 upostmst desktop 41736 Nov 11 15:01 /home/upostmst/Mail/upostmst
The size of the mailbox in that information is located after desktop - this number gives you an idea of how big the mailbox is. If the mailbox is really large (over several hundred megabytes), you may not be able to open it (you will be told if the mailbox is too large to open when you attempt to open it), and you will need to use other procedures to extract the messages from it.
At the prompt: upostmst-list: /home/upostmst $ $ Type:	uptime
The uptime command produces a display similar to:	3:06pm up 30 day(s), 22:47, 7 users, load average: 0.70, 0.75, 0.76
What you see is a one-line summary of system utilization. If the first number after average is above 20.0, you will want to talk (in person or on the telephone) to the Network Systems backup person, who may refer you to one of their email specialists (the "Postmaster Generals" for U.Va.) When you talk with Network Systems, you will want them to understand that the load on the mailhub seems high and ask if it is safe for you to try to process the messages in the postmaster's mailbox.
If the load on the mailhub is low (or you have been told by Network Systems that it is safe to proceed), at the prompt: upostmst-list: /home/upostmst $ type:	postmaster
The above command will open the postmaster's mailbox in mush

Leaving the Postmaster's Mailbox (or Leaving Mush)

There are two ways to leave mush:

The above "quits" mush and allows to exit the mailbox and update it to reflect the work you have completed.

At the mush prompt that is similar to:

Msg 2 of 4:

type:

At the mush prompt that is similar to:

Msg 2 of 4:

type:

The above "quits" mush and allows to exit the mailbox and update it to reflect the work you have completed. This form of leaving mush is generally reserved for after you have used the update command to change the mailbox permanently to reflect the work you have completed or when there are problems with the mailbox that cannot be resolved in another way.

Using Mush (Mail User's Shell)

When you read email, you use an email client or a mail user agent (MUA). You read the postmaster's mailbox with an email client/MUA named mush (short for Mail User's SHell). Mush will process the mailbox produced by mmdf, the mail transport agent on the mail hub (mail.virginia.edu). Mush provides all the tools needed to efficiently process messages in the postmaster's mailbox AND provides full message headers, something postmasters need. These full headers also allow others to whom we turn for help to see everything that they need to see. The most useful tols in mush are the ability to do picks and pipes to facilitate the processing of simlar messages in an efficient manner.

The current (02/02) ITC document on using mush is U-010A, "A Primer for Mail on RS/6000 Computers (MUSH)." This document provides the basics on using mush. It is available on-line. More information on mush can be obtained by typing:

man mush

at a Unix command line prompt on an ITC AIX Unix system other than the mail hub. A printed version of this can be obtained by typingat the Unix command line prompt

manpage -Pprinter_name mush

where printer_name is the name of the printer where you want the manpages to print

The manpage information is long (many pages). Most people (even postmasters) do not need this much detail on mush.

The following is a brief introduction to some of the basic functions of mush.

Mush begins

When mush first begins, you will see a display similar to:

Column
1	2	3	4	5	6	7

1		To: postmaster@virginia.edu	Dec 13	4:47	(9 lines)	Please do not
2	N	"mail.virginia.edu M	Feb 7	4:04	(192 lines)	Failed mail (msg.aa2259)
3	N	"mail.virginia.edu M	Feb 7	4:06	(101 lines)	Failed mail (msg.aa2452)
Msg 2 of 3:

Column 1 - Each message has an unique number assigned to it. This number is in the left-most column. The number is a relative to the position of the message in the mailbox and will change when you leave the mailbox or when you update the mailbox.

Column 2 - the status of the message in the mailbox.

N = new (unread)

r = a reply has been sent

f = message has been forwarded

space = message has been read

d = message

Column 3 - the sender of the message

Column 4 - the date of the message

Column 5 - the time the message was sent

Column 6 - the size of the message

Column 7 - the subject of the message

The final line tells you:

how many messages (total) are in the mailbox

which message is the current message (important to know because whatever command you use will work on the current message)

and is your command line prompt.

Commands are typed after the colon (:).

Commands are terminated by pressing the Enter or Return key.

Mush tips

Some common mush commands that you may want to use from the mush command line:

Command Function

Press Enter or Return key at end of screen line and at the end of commands

Mush expects you to press the Enter or Return key at the end of a line on your Screen. number Typing the number of a message and pressing the Enter (Return) key allows you to read that message. If you want to read a held message, you will have to follow this process. d Deletes the current message d number Deletes the message indicated by number d number1 M-^V number2 Deletes the range of numbers specified h Lists one screen of headers from current message h number Lists one screen of headers starting with given message number mail id Composes a new mail message to the indicated id mail M-^Vf id Forwards a message to the indicated id r Replies to the current message s filename Saves the current message into the named file Most files that are created at the main postmaster level have the form mbox.id Where mbox is fixed and id is the id of the customer in the message s number filename Saves the message incidated by number to the specified filename s number1-number2 filename Saves the range of numbers indicated to the specified filename pick text Searches the mailbox for the specified text and displays the messages that contain it Continued on next page M-V Mush tips M-^V command line (continued) Command Function | (pipe) Redirects messages selected by pick into another mush command. For example, you might use: pick text | d to delete all messages with the specified text . (period) Must be typed as first and only character on a line by itself Sends the message Mush tips M-^V composing a message When composing a message, there are many ~ commands that you can use at the beginning of a line that will help you work with the text in your message. mush ~ command (composing message) function ~e Invokes the default editor selected at login on the message text you are writing ~i Inserts a copy of the current message into the text of this message Each line of the inserted message will begin with > No headers are included ~i number Inserts a copy of the message with header number into the text of this message Each line of the inserted message will begin with > No headers are included ~I Inserts a copy of the current message into the text of this message Each line of the inserted message will begin with > Full message headers are included ~I number Inserts a copy of the message with header number into the text of this message Each line of the inserted message will begin with > Full message headers are included ~r path Reads a copy of a file specified by the indicated path (directory and filename) into the current message ~p Prints (to your screen) a copy of the current message ~v Invokes the jove editor on the message text you are writing ~x Discards the message text you have been writing without saving it ~? Displays all the ~ commands