ZAWAY(1)

💖 ZAWAY(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the manual page for zaway — a little icon from the General Commands Manual era, living in section 1. she's old, she's reliable, she's giving "auto-reply before auto-reply was a thing." let's get into it 🫶

---

✨ NAME ✨

zaway — tell other people via Zephyr that you aren't around 💅

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

zaway [ OPTIONS ] [ FILE ]

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the tea: zaway is your little "brb" bestie. when people hit you up using zwrite(1), zaway automatically fires back replies on your behalf. no cap.

to do this, zaway subscribes itself to class "MESSAGE", instance "*", so it can keep an eye on your incoming messages 👀. important: it does not mess with any other client that's also receiving messages — everyone else keeps doing their thing, no drama.

the vibe is: you run zaway when you're dipping from your terminal or display for a lil while. and like, zaway usually never exits. ever. she's committed. so when you come back, you gotta type the interrupt character (usually ^C) to make her exit. that's the way. periodt.

---

💜 OPTIONS 💜

• -m STRING — use STRING as the body of the auto-reply message. any message file (whether it's the one you named on the command line or the default one) gets ignored entirely. this is your "I'm saying exactly one thing and nothing else" mode ✨
• -w — watch the invoking user's location status. if the user is locatable anywhere, then no auto-replies get sent. so if you're findable, you're not "away" — makes sense, lowkey genius 🌈
• -h — displays a short usage message and exits. your classic "help me bestie" flag 💀

---

so zaway uses a message file — and it defaults to $HOME/.away — to describe what responses should get sent to which senders. the general format of this file is:

>name
>name
message
>name
message

any number of user names may be specified, sitting right before the message that should go to those senders. if a user name shows up more than once, the message will be a concatenation of each of the appropriate messages (yes, she stacks them, she's thorough 🎀).

there are two special names, and you're gonna wanna remember these:

• "*" — says the following message should be sent to all senders
• "%" — says the following message should only be sent if the user name has not matched yet

if no file is specified, and no default file can be found, this is the message that gets returned:

I'm sorry, but I am currently away from the terminal and am not
able to receive your message.

and if a user name doesn't match any of the ones listed in the file, and no "*" or "%" field is specified? then no return message is sent. nothing. silence. ghosted, respectfully 🙈

all messages are preceded by a signature: "Automated reply:".

and to avoid loops (the absolute worst), messages are not sent in response to messages that begin with an "Automated reply:" signature, or that were sent by the same Kerberos principal as the user running zaway. no infinite reply spiral here, we don't do that 💅

---

🎀 SAMPLE FILE 🎀

here's what a real one looks like, bestie:

>eichin
>tony
Hi there guys!  I'm in the other room right now.
I'll be back in 5 minutes or so.
>jruser
Sorry, but I'm gone for the day...
>%
Hello...I'm not sure who you are.  I'll be back soon,
though.
>*
This message comes to you compliments of zaway!

the way this works: that final "compliments" message will be included in all messages. meanwhile the "I'm not sure" message will only be included in messages that are not from "eichin", "tony", or "jruser". iconic behavior honestly ✨

---

🍓 FILES 🍓

• $HOME/.away

---

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

• zephyr(1), zwgc(1), zwrite(1), zhm(8), zephyrd(8)
• Project Athena Technical Plan Section E.4.1, Zephyr Notification Service

---

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Robert S. French (MIT-Project Athena)

---

⭐ RESTRICTIONS ⭐

Copyright (c) 1987,1988 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All Rights Reserved.

zephyr(1) specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.

bestie this is the legal part and we do NOT play with the legal part. zephyr(1) is where the terms and conditions live, so go read that one if you need the details, fr fr 💀

---

and that's the whole page, angel 🧚 this one came from MIT Project Athena and it's dated July 1, 1988 — yeah, she's an elder but she ATE and she's still serving in the ZAWAY(1) section of the manual. mwah 💋