NAME

     biff — be notified if mail arrives and who it is from

SYNOPSIS

     biff [ny]

DESCRIPTION

     Biff informs the system whether you want to be notified when mail arrives during the current
     terminal session.

     Options supported by biff:

     n     Disables notification.

     y     Enables notification.

     When mail notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of the message will be
     printed on your screen whenever mail arrives.  A “biff y” command is often included in the
     file .login or .profile to be executed at each login.

     Biff operates asynchronously via the comsat(8) service. If that service is not enabled, biff
     will not do anything. In that case, or for synchronous notification, use the MAIL variable
     of sh(1) or the mail variable of csh(1).

SEE ALSO

     csh(1), mail(1), sh(1), comsat(8)

HISTORY

     The biff command appeared in 4.0BSD.

BUGS

     su(1), and biff don't seem to get on too well. This is probably due to the tty still being
     owned by the person using su. This can result in “Permission denied” messages when
     attempting to change the biff status of your session.

     Please report bugs to netbug@ftp.uk.linux.org including diffs/patches, compiler error logs
     or as complete a bug report as is possible.