axgetmail(1)

📦 version 0.15, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💌 axgetmail — okay bestie, let's go get your mail

So like. This is a page from the AX.25 Mail Utilities manual, section 1, and it's all about axgetmail — the little icon that automatically downloads messages from the F6FBB BBS. No cap. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

axgetmail — automatically download messages from the F6FBB BBS 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

axgetmail <bbs_callsign>

That's it. One argument. She's low maintenance, we love that for her. 💅

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Okay so here's the tea. axgetmail slides into the message list of the BBS you told it about and downloads all the new messages whose destination belongs to the list of interesting bulletins. And yes — there can be a separate list for each BBS. Per-BBS lists, as a treat. 👑

Bulletins get stored into:

/var/ax25/mail/<bbs_callsign>/<message_number>

Now for personal mail, it's a lil more involved, so stay with me. For every callsign we wanna download mail for, that callsign needs an entry in the /etc/ax25/logins file — that's how axgetmail figures out which user's home directory to use for storing the personal messages. The HOMEDIR argument in axgetmail.conf tells it the path relative to the user's home directory where that personal mail should land. So personal messages go into:

$HOME/HOMEDIR/<bbs_callsign>
Heads up bestie: if the subdirectory for any BBS doesn't exist, then no personal mail is downloaded for that user from that BBS. It's just not happening. 🙈

Alsooo, axgetmail can be run automatically by the ulistd utility. Go check out ulistd(8) for that. ✨

🔐 AUTHORIZATION 🔐

So after a successful connect to the BBS, axgetmail tries to execute the script:

/var/ax25/auth_agent

…and it redirects that script's stdin and stdout straight to the BBS. The BBS callsign gets passed in as the first command line argument. The script is supposed to do whatever it takes to get the user authorized to the BBS — that's its whole job.

And if the script execution fails? axgetmail just keeps on downloading the messages anyway, without authorization. She's resilient like that. 💀

📁 FILES 📁

  • /etc/ax25/axgetmail.conf
  • /etc/ax25/logins
  • /etc/ax25/axports
  • /var/ax25/auth_agent
  • /var/ax25/ulistd/*
  • /var/ax25/mail/*

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

ulistd(8) · axgetmsg(1) · msgcleanup(1) · ax25(4)

Go read those too, iykyk. 🌈

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Radek Burget OK2JBG <radkovo@centrum.cz> — literal legend, main character energy, periodt. 👑

So yeah, that's the whole page, bestie. This one shipped with Linux and it's dated 22 January 2002 — vintage but still slaying. Go download your mail fr fr. 💖✨🎀🦋

📦 where this page comes from