Provided by: nmh_1.8-1_amd64 bug

NAME

       mh-profile, mh_profile - user customization for nmh message handler

DESCRIPTION

       Each  user  of  nmh  is expected to have a file named .mh-profile in their home directory.
       This file contains a set of user parameters used by the  nmh  family  of  programs.   Each
       entry in the file is of the format

            profile-component: value

       If  the  text  of  a profile entry is long, you may extend it across several real lines by
       indenting the continuation lines with leading spaces or tabs.  Comments may be  introduced
       by a line starting with `#:':

            #: This is a comment.

       Blank  lines  are  not  permitted  in  .mh-profile.   Shell  quoting  conventions  are not
       available; each token is separated by whitespace.

   Standard Profile Entries
       The possible profile components are  exemplified  below.   The  only  mandatory  entry  is
       `Path:'.   The  others are optional; some have default values if they are not present.  In
       the notation used below, (profile, default) indicates whether the information is  kept  in
       the user's nmh profile or nmh context, and indicates what the default value is.  Note that
       a profile component can only appear once.  Multiple appearances  will  trigger  a  warning
       that all appearances after the first are ignored.

       Some MH programs, including mhbuild, mhshow, and mhstore, have specific profile components
       that are described in their respective man pages.  Each component name specific  to  these
       programs begins with the name of the program and is followed by a dash.

       Path: Mail
            Locates nmh transactions in directory “Mail”.  A relative Path starts from the user's
            home directory.  This is the only mandatory profile entry.  (profile, no default)

       locale: locale
            Set the locale for all nmh programs except post, install-mh,  and  slocal.   See  the
            LC_ALL,  LC_CTYPE,  and  LANG  variables  in  the  "ENVIRONMENT"  section below for a
            reference on how the locale is set if this profile component is not used.

       context: context
            Declares the location of the nmh  context  file.   This  can  be  overridden  by  the
            environment  variable  MHCONTEXT.  See the HISTORY section below.  (profile, default:
            <nmh-dir>/context)

       Current-Folder: inbox
            Keeps track of the current open  folder.   (context,  default:  folder  specified  by
            “Inbox”)

       Inbox: inbox
            Defines the name of the default inbox.  (profile, default: inbox)

       Previous-Sequence: pseq
            Names  the  sequence  or  sequences  which  should  be defined as the `msgs' or `msg'
            argument given to any nmh command.  If not present or empty, no  such  sequences  are
            defined.   Otherwise, for each name given, the sequence is first zeroed and then each
            message is added to the sequence.  Read mh-sequence(5) for  the  details  about  this
            sequence.  (profile, no default)

       Sequence-Negation: not
            Defines  the  string  which, when prefixed to a sequence name, negates that sequence.
            Hence, “notseen” means all those messages that are  not  a  member  of  the  sequence
            “seen”.  Read mh-sequence(5) for the details.  (profile, no default)

       Unseen-Sequence: unseen
            Names  the  sequence or sequences which should be defined as those messages which are
            unread.  The commands inc, rcvstore, mhshow, and show will  add  or  remove  messages
            from these sequences when they are incorporated or read.  If not present or empty, no
            such sequences are defined.  Otherwise, each message is added to,  or  removed  from,
            each  sequence  name given.  Read mh-sequence(5) for the details about this sequence.
            (profile, no default)

       mh-sequences: .mh-sequences
            The name of the file in each folder which defines public sequences.  To  disable  the
            use  of  public  sequences,  leave  the value portion of this entry blank.  (profile,
            default: .mh-sequences)

       atr-seq-folder: 172 178-181 212
            Keeps track of the private sequence called “seq” in the  specified  folder.   Private
            sequences  are  generally used for read-only folders.  See mh-sequence(5) for details
            about private sequences.  (context, no default)

       Editor: prompter
            Defines the editor to be used by the commands comp, dist, forw,  and  repl.   If  not
            set,  the  value  will  be  taken  from  the VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables.
            (profile, default: prompter)

       Msg-Protect: 600
            An octal number which defines  the  permission  bits  for  new  message  files.   See
            chmod(1) for an explanation of the octal number.  Note that some filesystems, such as
            FAT32, do not support removal of read file permissions.  (profile, default: 0600)

       Folder-Protect: 700
            An octal number which defines the permission bits for new  folder  directories.   See
            chmod(1) for an explanation of the octal number.  (profile, default: 700)

       datalocking: fcntl
            The  locking  algorithm used to lock changes to any nmh data files, such as sequences
            or context.  The locking algorithm is any one of the following entries:

                 fcntl dot flock lockf

            Available locking algorithms can vary  depending  on  the  operating  system.   Note:
            currently,   transactional  locking  is  only  supported  on  public  sequences;  see
            mh-sequence(5) for more information.  (profile, default: fcntl)

       program: default switches
            Sets default switches to be used whenever the mh program  program  is  invoked.   For
            example, one could override the “Editor:” profile component when replying to messages
            by adding a component such as:

                 repl: -editor /bin/ed

            (profile, no defaults)

       lasteditor-next: nexteditor
            Names “nexteditor” to be the default editor after  using  “lasteditor”.   This  takes
            effect  at  the  “What now?” prompt in comp, dist, forw, and repl.  After editing the
            draft with “lasteditor”, the default editor is set to be “nexteditor”.  If  the  user
            types  “edit”  without  any  arguments  to  “What  now?”,  then “nexteditor” is used.
            (profile, no default)

       Folder-Stack: folders
            The contents of the folder-stack for the folder command.  (context, no default)

       Local-Mailbox: Your Username <user@some.host>
            Tells the MH programs what your local mailbox is.  If set, it will  be  used  by  the
            default  component  files  by  programs  like comp and repl to construct your default
            “From:” header.  The text used here will be copied exactly to your “From:” header, so
            it  should already be RFC 822 compliant.  If this is set, the Signature profile entry
            is not  used,  so  it  should  include  a  signature  as  well.   (profile,  default:
            userid@local.hostname)

       Alternate-Mailboxes: mh@uci-750a, bug-mh*
            Tells  repl  and  scan which additional addresses are yours.  In this way, repl knows
            which addresses should be included  in  the  reply,  and  scan  knows  if  a  message
            originated  from  you.   Addresses  must  be  separated by a comma, and the hostnames
            listed should be the “official” hostnames for the mailboxes you  indicate,  as  local
            nicknames  for  hosts  are  not  replaced  with  their official site names.  For each
            address, if a host is not given, then that address on any host is  considered  to  be
            you.  In addition, an asterisk (`*') may appear at either or both ends of the mailbox
            and host to indicate wild-card matching.  (profile, default: your user-id)

       Aliasfile: aliases other-aliases
            Indicates alias files for ali, whom, and send.  This  may  be  used  instead  of  the
            -alias file switch.  (profile, no default)

       Draft-Folder: drafts
            Indicates  a  default  draft  folder  for  comp,  dist, forw, refile, and repl.  Read
            mh-draft(5) for details.  (profile, no default)

       digest-issue-list: 1
            Tells forw the last issue of the last volume sent for the digest list.  (context,  no
            default)

       digest-volume-list: 1
            Tells forw the last volume sent for the digest list.  (context, no default)

       MailDrop: .mail
            Tells  inc  your mail drop, if different from the default.  This is superseded by the
            environment variable MAILDROP.  (profile, default: /var/mail/$USER)

       Signature: RAND MH System (agent: Marshall Rose)
            Tells front-end programs such as comp, forw, and repl your mail signature.  (This  is
            not  to  be  confused  with  a  .signature  that might be appended to mails.) This is
            superseded by the environment variable SIGNATURE.  If SIGNATURE is not set  and  this
            profile  entry is not present, the “gcos” field of the /etc/passwd file will be used.
            Your signature will be added to the address send puts in the “From:” header;  do  not
            include  an  address  in  the  signature text.  The “Local-Mailbox” profile component
            supersedes all of this.  (profile, no default)

       credentials: legacy
            Indicates how the username and password credentials will be retrieved for  access  to
            external  servers,  such  as  those  that provide SMTP or POP service.  The supported
            entry  values  are  “legacy”,  “file:netrc”,  and   “file-nopermcheck:netrc”.    With
            “legacy”, or if there is no credentials entry, the username is the first of:

                 1)   -user switch to inc, msgchk, post, send, or whom program
                 2)   the login name on the local machine

            The password for SMTP services is the first of:

                 1)   password  value  from  matching  entry in file named “.netrc” in the user's
                      home directory
                 2)   password obtained by interactively prompting the user

            With a “file:netrccredentials entry, the username is the first of:
                 1)   -user switch to program
                 2)   login name from matching entry in netrc file
                 3)   value provided by user in response to interactive query

            Similarly, the password is provided either in the netrc file or interactively.  netrc
            can  be  any valid filename, either absolute or relative to Path or $HOME.  The netrc
            file contains authentication information, for  each  server,  using  a  line  of  the
            following  form.   (Replace  myserver,  mylogin, and mypassword with your own account
            information.)

                 machine myserver login mylogin password mypassword

            This netrc file must be owned and readable only by you.

            The “file-nopermcheck:netrccredentials entry is identical in behavior to the “file”
            entry,  with  the  exception  that  the  permission  checks  done  by  “file” are not
            performed.  This  entry  should  be  used  with  caution  and  only  when  absolutely
            necessary.  (profile, default: legacy)

       Welcome: disable
            If  the  Welcome  component  is not present, or its value is not “disable”, a welcome
            message will be displayed the first time that an interactive nmh program is run after
            updating the nmh installation.  The user must press the Enter key to continue.

            If the MHCONTEXT environment variable is set and non-empty (and the Welcome component
            is not “disable”), the welcome message is only displayed if the context file contains
            a version reference, and that reference is older than the installed nmh version.  The
            version reference is of the form:

                 Version: nmh-1.8

   Process Profile Entries
       The following profile elements are  used  whenever  an  nmh  program  invokes  some  other
       program,  such  as  more.  The .mh-profile can be used to select alternate programs if the
       user wishes.  The default values are given in the examples.

       If the profile element contains spaces, the element is split at  spaces  into  tokens  and
       each  token  is given as a separate argument to the execvp(2) system call.  If the element
       contains shell metacharacters then the entire element is executed using /bin/sh.

       buildmimeproc: /usr/bin/mh/mhbuild
            This is the program used by whatnow to process  drafts  which  are  MIME  composition
            files.

       fileproc: /usr/bin/mh/refile
            This  program  is  used to refile or link a message to another folder.  It is used by
            post to file a copy of a message into a folder given by a “Fcc:” field.  It  is  used
            by  the draft folder facility in comp, dist, forw, and repl to refile a draft message
            into another folder.  It is used to refile a draft message in response to the  refile
            directive at the “What now?” prompt.

       formatproc:
            Program  called  by  mhl  to  filter  a component when it is tagged with the “format”
            variable in the mhl filter.  See mhl(5) for more information.

       incproc: /usr/bin/mh/inc
            Program called by mhmail  to  incorporate  new  mail  when  it  is  invoked  with  no
            arguments.

       lproc: more
            This  program  is  used  to  list  the  contents of a message in response to the list
            directive at the “What now?” prompt.  It is also used by the draft folder facility in
            comp,  dist, forw, and repl to display the draft message.  (Note that the environment
            variable PAGER supersedes the default built-in pager command.)

       mailproc: /usr/bin/mh/mhmail
            This is the program used to automatically mail various  messages  and  notifications.
            It  is used by send to post failure notices.  It is used to retrieve an external-body
            with access-type `mail-server' (such as when storing the body with mhstore).

       mhlproc: /usr/lib/mh/mhl
            This is the program used to filter messages in various ways.  It is used by mhshow to
            filter and display the message headers of MIME messages.  When the -format or -filter
            option is used by forw or repl, the mhlproc is used to filter the  message  that  you
            are  forwarding,  or  to which you are replying.  When the -filter option is given to
            send, the mhlproc is used to filter the copy of the message that is  sent  to  “Bcc:”
            recipients.

       moreproc: more
            This  is the program used by mhl to page the mhl formatted message when displaying to
            a terminal.  It is also the default program used by mhshow to display message  bodies
            (or  message  parts)  of  type text/plain.  (Note that the environment variable PAGER
            supersedes the default built-in pager command.)

       packproc: /usr/bin/mh/packf
            Currently not used.

       postproc: /usr/lib/mh/post
            This is the program used by send, mhmail, rcvdist, and viamail (used by the sendfiles
            shell  script)  to post a message to the mail transport system.  It is also called by
            whom (called with the switches -whom and -library) to do address verification.

            If the profile contains a post component and a postproc component is not  present,  a
            warning  message  that  the post component will be ignored will be displayed by every
            nmh program that reads the profile and has its stderr associated with a terminal.

       rmmproc: none
            This is the program used by rmm, refile, and mhfixmsg to  delete  a  message  from  a
            folder.

       sendproc: /usr/bin/mh/send
            This is the program used by whatnow to actually send the message

       showmimeproc: /usr/bin/mh/mhshow
            This is the program used by show to process and display non-text (MIME) messages.

       showproc: /usr/lib/mh/mhl
            This is the program used by show to filter and display text (non-MIME) messages.

       whatnowproc: /usr/bin/mh/whatnow
            This  is  the  program  invoked  by  comp,  dist,  forw,  and repl to query about the
            disposition of a composed draft message.

       whomproc: /usr/bin/mh/whom
            This is the program used by whatnow to determine to whom a message would be sent.

   Profile Lookup
       After consulting .mh_profile, some programs  read  an  optional  profile  specified  by  a
       program-specific    environment    variable,    and    then    the   system-wide   profile
       /etc/nmh/mhn.defaults.  These programs are mhbuild, mhshow, mhstore, and mhn.  mhfixmsg is
       similar, but has no optional profile.

       The  first  occurrence  of  a  component  is used, e.g. .mh_profile's trumps $MHSHOW's.  A
       component with no value still stops further occurrences  being  used,  but  is  considered
       absent.

       The  .mh-profile  contains  only  static  information, which nmh programs will not update.
       Changes in context are made to the context file kept in the  users  nmh  directory.   This
       includes,  but  is  not  limited  to:  the “Current-Folder” entry and all private sequence
       information.  Public sequence information is kept in each folder in the file determined by
       the “mh-sequences” profile entry (default is .mh-sequences).

       The .mh-profile may override the path of the context file, by specifying a “context” entry
       (this must be in lower-case).  If the entry is not absolute (does not start with  a  “/”),
       then  it  is  interpreted  relative  to  the  user's  nmh directory.  As a result, you can
       actually have more than one set of private sequences by using different context files.

ENVIRONMENT

       The operation of nmh and its commands it  also  controlled  by  the  presence  of  certain
       environment variables.

       Many  of  these  environment  variables  are used internally by the “What now?” interface.
       It's amazing all the information that has to get passed via environment variables to  make
       the  “What  now?”  interface look squeaky clean to the nmh user, isn't it?  The reason for
       all this is that the nmh user can select any program as the whatnowproc, including one  of
       the  standard  shells.  As a result, it's not possible to pass information via an argument
       list.  The convention is that environment variables whose names  are  all  upper-case  are
       user-settable; those whose names are lower-case only are used internally by nmh and should
       not generally be set by the user.

       HOME   If set and non-null, it is used as the user's home directory.  If not set or  null,
              then getpwuid(3)'s pw_dir is used.

       LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
              These  variables  are  used to set the locale, see locale(1).  The “locale” profile
              entry supersedes these.

       MAILDROP
              This variable tells inc the default mail  drop.   This  supersedes  the  “MailDrop”
              profile entry.

       MAILHOST
              This  variable tells inc the POP host to query for mail to incorporate.  See inc(1)
              for more information.

       MH     With this environment variable, you can specify a profile other than .mh-profile to
              be  read  by the nmh programs that you invoke.  If the value of MH is not absolute,
              (i.e., does not begin with a “/”), it will be presumed to start  from  the  current
              working  directory.   This  is  one  of  the  very few exceptions in nmh where non-
              absolute pathnames are not considered relative to the user's nmh directory.

       MHBUILD
              With this environment variable, you can specify an additional user  profile  (file)
              to be read by mhbuild, in addition to the mhn.defaults profile.

       MHCONTEXT
              With  this  environment  variable,  you can specify a context other than the normal
              context file (as specified in the nmh profile).  As  usual,  unless  the  value  of
              MHCONTEXT is absolute, it will be presumed to start from your nmh directory.

       MHLDEBUG
              If this variable is set to a non-null value, mhl will emit debugging information.

       MHMTSCONF
              If  this  variable  is  set  to a non-null value, it specifies the name of the mail
              transport configuration file to use by inc, post, and other programs that  interact
              with the mail transport system, instead of the default.  See mh-tailor(5).

       MHMTSUSERCONF
              If  this  variable  is  set  to  a  non-null value, it specifies the name of a mail
              transport configuration file to be read  in  addition  to  the  default.   See  mh-
              tailor(5).

       MHN    With  this  environment variable, you can specify an additional user profile (file)
              to be read by mhn, in addition to the mhn.defaults profile.  mhn is deprecated,  so
              support for this variable will be removed from a future nmh release.

       MHSHOW With  this  environment variable, you can specify an additional user profile (file)
              to be read by mhshow, in addition to the mhn.defaults profile.

       MHSTORE
              With this environment variable, you can specify an additional user  profile  (file)
              to be read by mhstore, in addition to the mhn.defaults profile.

       MHTMPDIR, TMPDIR
              These  variables  are searched, in order, for the directory in which to create some
              temporary files.  MHTMPDIR is deprecated and will be removed in a future release of
              nmh.

       MHWDEBUG
              If  this  variable  is  set  to  a  non-null  value,  nmh  commands  that  use  the
              Alternate-Mailboxes profile entry will  display  debugging  information  about  the
              values in that entry.

       PAGER  If set to a non-null value, this supersedes the value of the default built-in pager
              command.

       SIGNATURE
              This variable tells send  and  post  your  mail  signature.   This  supersedes  the
              “Signature”  profile  entry,  and  is  not  used  when  the “Local-Mailbox” profile
              component is set.

       USER   This variable tells repl your user name and inc your default mail  drop:   see  the
              “MailDrop” profile entry.

       USERNAME_EXTENSION
              This variable is for use with username_extension masquerading.  See mh-tailor(5).

       editalt
              This  is  the alternate message.  This is set by dist and repl during edit sessions
              so you can peruse the message being distributed or replied to.  The message is also
              available,  when  the  -atfile  switch  is  used,  through a link called “@” in the
              current directory if your current working directory  and  the  folder  the  message
              lives  in are on the same Unix filesystem, and if your current working directory is
              writable.

       mhaltmsg
              dist and repl set mhaltmsg to tell  the  whatnowproc  about  an  alternate  message
              associated with the draft (the message being distributed or replied to).

       mhannotate
              This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations are to occur.

       mhdist dist sets mhdist to tell the whatnowproc that message re-distribution is occurring.

       mhdraft
              This  is the path to the working draft.  It is set by comp, dist, forw, and repl to
              tell the whatnowproc which file to ask “What now?” questions about.

       mheditor
              This is set by comp, repl, forw, and dist to tell the whatnowproc the user's choice
              of editor (unless overridden by -noedit).

       mhfolder
              This  is  the  folder containing the alternate message.  It is set by dist and repl
              during edit sessions so you can peruse other messages in the current folder besides
              the one being distributed or replied to.  The environment variable mhfolder is also
              set by next, prev, and show for use by mhl.

       mhinplace
              This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations are to occur.

       mhmessages
              This is set by dist, forw, and repl if annotations are to occur.

       mhuse  This may be set by comp.

FILES

       $HOME/.mh-profile   The user's profile.
       <mh-dir>/context    The user's context
       <folder>/.mh-sequences
                           Public sequences for <folder>.

SEE ALSO

       mhbuild(1), mhshow(1), mhstore(1), mh-sequence(5), nmh(7), post(8)

BUGS

       There is some question as to what kind of arguments should be placed  in  the  profile  as
       options.  In order to provide a clear answer, recall the command line semantics of all nmh
       programs: conflicting switches (e.g.  -header and -noheader) may occur more than one  time
       on the command line, with the last switch taking effect.  Other arguments, such as message
       sequences, filenames and folders, are always remembered on the invocation line and are not
       superseded  by  following  arguments  of  the  same type.  Hence, it is safe to place only
       switches (and their arguments) in the profile.

       If one finds that an nmh program is being invoked again and again with the same arguments,
       and  those  arguments  aren't  switches,  then  there are a few possible solutions to this
       problem.  The first is to create a (soft) link in your  $HOME/bin  directory  to  the  nmh
       program  of your choice.  By giving this link a different name, you can create a new entry
       in your profile and use an alternate set of defaults for the nmh command.  Similarly,  you
       could  create  a  small  shell  script which called the nmh program of your choice with an
       alternate set of invocation line switches (using links and an alternate profile  entry  is
       preferable to this solution).

       Finally, the csh user could create an alias for the command of the form:

            alias cmd 'cmd arg1 arg2 ...'

       In  this way, the user can avoid lengthy type-in to the shell, and still give nmh commands
       safely.  (Recall that some nmh commands invoke others, and that in all cases, the  profile
       is read, meaning that aliases are disregarded beyond an initial command invocation)