1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)biff.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 29.\" $FreeBSD$ 30.\" 31.Dd April 28, 2013 32.Dt BIFF 1 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm biff 36.Nd "be notified if mail arrives and who it is from" 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Op Cm n | y | b 40.Sh DESCRIPTION 41The 42.Nm 43utility informs the system whether you want to be notified on your terminal 44when mail arrives. 45.Pp 46Affected is the first terminal associated with the standard input, 47standard output or standard error file descriptor, in that order. 48Thus, it is possible to use the redirection facilities of a shell to 49toggle the notification for other terminals than the one 50.Nm 51runs on. 52.Pp 53The following options are available: 54.Bl -tag -width indent 55.It Cm n 56Disable notification. 57.It Cm y 58Enable header notification. 59.It Cm b 60Enable bell notification. 61.El 62.Pp 63When header notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of 64the message will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 65A 66.Dq "biff y" 67command is often included in the file 68.Pa .login 69or 70.Pa .profile 71to be executed at each login. 72.Pp 73When bell notification is enabled, only two bell characters 74.Tn ( ASCII 75\\007) 76will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 77.Pp 78If no arguments are given, 79.Nm 80displays the present notification status of the terminal to the 81standard output. 82.Pp 83The 84.Nm 85utility operates asynchronously. 86For synchronous notification use the 87.Ev MAIL 88variable of 89.Xr sh 1 90or the 91.Va mail 92variable of 93.Xr csh 1 . 94.Sh EXIT STATUS 95The 96.Nm 97utility exits with one of the following values: 98.Bl -tag -width indent 99.It 0 100Notification was enabled at the time of invocation. 101.It 1 102Notification was disabled at the time of invocation. 103.It >1 104An error occurred. 105.El 106.Sh COMPATIBILITY 107Previous versions of the 108.Nm 109utility affected the terminal attached to standard error without first 110trying the standard input or output devices. 111.Sh SEE ALSO 112.Xr csh 1 , 113.Xr mail 1 , 114.Xr sh 1 , 115.Xr comsat 8 116.Sh HISTORY 117The 118.Nm 119command appeared in 120.Bx 4.0 . 121It was named after the dog of Heidi Stettner. 122He died 123in August 1993, at 15. 124