.TH MAILER 8 RAND
.SH NAME
mailer \- Send Arpanet mail
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B /etc/mailer 
[
.B \-l
] [
.B \-v
] [file ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Mailer
is a program to send messages to remote Arpanet sites.  If one or more
.I file\fRs
are specified, 
.I mailer 
will process 
those files as its only task.  If no
.I file
is specified, 
.I mailer 
will attempt to process all files in the queue directory,
/usr/spool/netmail.
.PP
The
.B \-l
flag causes output to be placed on standard output suitable
for a log.
.PP
The
.B \-v
flag causes output to be placed on the standard output suitable
for a user (as in the \-v option of
.I deliver(8).
The two flags should not be used together.
.PP
The format of message files is described in
.I netmail(5).
It should be noted that control lines for all of the recipients
of a single message are maintained at the beginning of the file.
Due to transient Arpanet failures, it is possible for some or
all of the recipient lines to be marked as 
being in an as-yet-undelivered state.  
When all of the recipients have either accepted or rejected
the message, it is removed.
If a message has still not been disposed of after five days,
it is considered undeliverable.
.PP
Messages may also become undeliverable for a number of other reasons,
such as a "no such user" message from the foreign site.  In any case,
if a message is undeliverable, it is returned to the sender
via 
.I mail(1)
with a note prepended to explain the problem.  Clearly, more than
one such returned message may result from a single message file
with multiple recipients.
.PP
.I Mailer
should be invoked periodically by 
.I cron(8).
Ten-minute intervals are not unreasonable.
.SH FILES
/usr/spool/netmail
.br
/dev/imp*
.br
/etc/hosttable
.SH SEE ALSO
deliver(8),netmail(5),mail(1),imp(4)