MSGCHK(1)

NAME
msgchk - check for messages

SYNOPSIS

msgchk [-date | -nodate] [-notify all/mail/nomail ] [-nonotify all/mail/nomail ] [-host hostname] [-user username] [-apop | -noapop] [-kpop] [-sasl] [-saslmech mechanism] [-snoop] [users [-version] [-help]

DESCRIPTION
The msgchk program checks all known mail drops for mail waiting for you. For those drops which have mail for you, msgchk will indicate if it believes that you have seen the mail in question before.

The -notify type switch indicates under what circumstances msgchk should produce a message. The default is -notify all which says that msgchk should always report the status of the users maildrop. Other values for `type' include `mail' which says that msgchk should report the status of waiting mail; and, `nomail' which says that msgchk should report the status of empty maildrops. The -nonotify type switch has the inverted sense, so -nonotify all directs msgchk to never report the status of maildrops. This is useful if the user wishes to check msgchk's exit status. A non-zero exit status indicates that mail was not waiting for at least one of the indicated users.

If msgchk produces output, then the -date switch directs msgchk to print out the last date mail was read, if this can be determined.

  Using POP
msgchk will normally check all the local mail drops, but if the option “pophost:” is set in the mts configuration file “mts.conf”, or if the -host hostname switch is given, msgchk will query this POP service host as to the status of mail waiting.

The default is for msgchk to assume that your account name on the POP server is the same as your current username. To specify a different username, use the `-user username' switch.

When using POP, you will normally need to type the password for your account on the POP server, in order to retrieve your messages. It is possible to automate this process by creating a “.netrc” file containing your login account information for this POP server. For each POP server, this file should have a line of the following form. Replace the words mypopserver, mylogin, and mypassword with your own account information.

    machine mypopserver login mylogin password mypassword

This “.netrc” file should be owned and readable only by you.

For debugging purposes, there is also a switch -snoop, which will allow you to watch the POP transaction take place between you and the POP server.

If nmh has been compiled with APOP support, the -apop switch will cause msgchk to use APOP rather than standard POP3 authentication. Under APOP, a unique string (generally of the format <pid.timestamp@hostname>) is announced by the POP server. Rather than `USER user', `PASS password', msgchk sends `APOP user digest', where digest is the MD5 hash of the unique string followed by a `secret' shared by client and server, essentially equivalent to the user's password (though an APOP-enabled POP3 server could have separate APOP and plain POP3 passwords for a single user). -noapop disables APOP in cases where it'd otherwise be used.

If nmh has been compiled with KPOP support, the -kpop switch will allow msgchk to use Kerberized POP rather than standard POP3 on a given invocation. If POPSERVICE was also #defined to "kpop", msgchk will be hardwired to always use KPOP.

If nmh has been compiled with SASL support, the -sasl switch will enable the use of SASL authentication. Depending on the SASL mechanism used, this may require an additional password prompt from the user (but the “.netrc” file can be used to store this password). The -saslmech switch can be used to select a particular SASL mechanism.

If SASL authentication is successful, inc will attempt to negotiate a security layer for session encryption. Encrypted traffic is labelled with `(encrypted)' and `(decrypted)' when viewing the POP transaction with the -snoop switch.

FILES
^$HOME/.mh_profile~^The user profile
^/usr/local/etc/nmh/mts.conf~^nmh mts configuration file
^/var/mail/$USER~^Location of mail drop

PROFILE COMPONENTS
None

SEE ALSO
inc(1)

DEFAULTS
`user' defaults to the current user
`-date'
`-notify all'

CONTEXT
None