Mike McClain wrote:
> But something is sending 'You have mail in /var/mail/mike' often
> in the middle of me typing a commandline or editing a file which can
> be most disconcerting & annoying. I get these messages even when the
> mail is old mail I just haven't thrown away yet.
> Can someone tell me what might be doing this and how to control it?

This may be the shell's own built-in mail check. The bash
documentation for example says:

MAIL If this parameter is set to a file or directory name and
the MAILPATH variable is not set, bash informs the user
of the arrival of mail in the specified file or
Maildir-format directory.

MAILCHECK
Specifies how often (in seconds) bash checks for mail.
The default is 60 seconds. When it is time to check for
mail, the shell does so before displaying the primary
prompt. If this variable is unset, or set to a value
that is not a number greater than or equal to zero, the
shell disables mail checking.

MAILPATH
A colon-separated list of file names to be checked for
mail. The message to be printed when mail arrives in a
particular file may be specified by separating the file
name from the message with a `?'. When used in the text
of the message, $_ expands to the name of the current
mailfile. Example: MAILPATH='/var/mail/bfox?"You have
mail":~/shell-mail?"$_ has mail!"' Bash supplies a
default value for this variable, but the location of the
user mail files that it uses is system dependent (e.g.,
/var/mail/$USER).

Bob

Mike McClain <mike.junk@nethere.com> wrote:
> -bash: biff: command not found
> But something is sending 'You have mail in /var/mail/mike' often
> in the middle of me typing a commandline or editing a file which can
> be most disconcerting & annoying

Just a guess.. do you have postfix installed, and is there a line starting
"biff =" in its main.cf? The default is (apparently) that it is enabled,
so unless there is a "biff = no" my understanding is that this could be
a culprit. (I don't use posfix, so I can't go further.)

Chris


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Thanks, Bob.
Both MAIL & MAILCHECK are set in the environment but I have set
MAILCHECK=0 in .bashrc which ought to solve the problem. I've yet to
find where it's set though in Squeeze.
Much obliged,
Mike

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 12:34:15PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
> Mike McClain wrote:
> > But something is sending 'You have mail in /var/mail/mike' often
> > in the middle of me typing a commandline or editing a file which can
> > be most disconcerting & annoying. I get these messages even when the
> > mail is old mail I just haven't thrown away yet.
> > Can someone tell me what might be doing this and how to control it?
>
> This may be the shell's own built-in mail check. The bash
> documentation for example says:
<snip>
> MAILCHECK
> Specifies how often (in seconds) bash checks for mail.
> The default is 60 seconds. When it is time to check for
> mail, the shell does so before displaying the primary
> prompt. If this variable is unset, or set to a value
> that is not a number greater than or equal to zero, the
> shell disables mail checking.
> Bob
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On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 08:30:12PM +0100, Chris Davies wrote:
> Mike McClain <mike.junk@nethere.com> wrote:
> > -bash: biff: command not found
> > But something is sending 'You have mail in /var/mail/mike' often
> > in the middle of me typing a commandline or editing a file which can
> > be most disconcerting & annoying
>
> Just a guess.. do you have postfix installed, and is there a line starting
<snip>

no biff and no postfix
Thanks for the thought.
Mike
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O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org


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