Summary: unix-pc "vacation" program

[Brant Cheikes]

A couple weeks back, I asked for any and all info on programs that
could automatically reply to mail in a user's absence.  I received a
few replies, which I summarize here.

The indefatigable lenny at icus.islp.ny.us (Lenny Tropiano) informed me
that Smail3.1, currently in alpha test and NOT GENERALLY AVAILABLE (so
don't post articles asking for it!), would have the desired feature.
That, of course, remains to be seen.

>From sewilco at datapg.MN.ORG (Scot E Wilcoxon) came the suggestion to
look for "mailaway" or the Elm "filter" program.  Both these programs
apparently require a means to feed a mail message to a program.  I'm
not interested in Elm (quite happy with Gnu Emacs RMAIL, thanks), and
I haven't tried to track down mailaway.

Mail from denwa!jimmy (Jim Gottlieb) suggested that I use the vacation
macro supposed with the AT&T Emacs available (to AT&T employees only,
I presume) from The Store!.  I haven't tracked this down either, but
then I suspect that a macro supplied with an editor won't do what I
want: *automatic* email reply when I'm away.

Now Marnix <forgot last name, sorry> vanam at pttesac actually sent some
C code.  I won't post it (you can write to him if you're interested,
or he can post it).  It's a pretty simple program that doesn't look
like it checks for mail bouncing back and forth, but it seems to be at
least going in the right direction.  I may use it as a jumping-off
point for my own version.

Finally, sadler at cs.wisc.edu (Jon B. Sadler) pointed out that the
Vacation program is included with the Supplemental Programs Tape for
Berkley UNIX (and may be available from the comp.sources.unix
archives).  However, it apparently requires sendmail, which I haven't
tried to bring up on the 3b1.

That's all the replies.  Muchas gracias to all those who took time to
respond to my inquiry.
-- 
Brant Cheikes
University of Pennsylvania
Department of Computer and Information Science
Internet: brant at manta.pha.pa.us, UUCP: bpa!manta!brant