.\" .\" '\" t .\" Title: cone .\" Author: Sam Varshavchik .\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.75.2 .\" Date: 04/04/2011 .\" Manual: Cone: COnsole Newsreader And Emailer .\" Source: Cone\(co .\" Language: English .\" .TH "CONE" "1" "04/04/2011" "Cone\(co" "Cone: COnsole Newsreader And E" .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .\" * set default formatting .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .\" disable hyphenation .nh .\" disable justification (adjust text to left margin only) .ad l .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .\" * MAIN CONTENT STARTS HERE * .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .SH "NAME" cone \- Read and send E\-mail messages .SH "SYNOPSIS" .HP \w'\fBcone\fR\ 'u \fBcone\fR [\-r] [\-c\ \fIdirectory\fR] .SH "USAGE" .PP Cone is a console newsreader and E\-mail\&. It is an interactive program for reading and sending E\-mail messages\&. Cone is designed to be intuitive and easy to learn\&. Starting Cone for the first time displays two links: one for the default system mailbox, and a second link to a quick online tutorial\&. The online tutorial provides a brief overview of using Cone for reading and sending E\-mail\&. .PP Pressing Q on most screens exits Cone\&. Cone tries to gracefully log out and shut down all server connections\&. If Cone cannot log out of a remote server because the remote server is down, press CTRL\-C (after Q to terminate Cone)\&. .PP Use CTRL\-Z to temporarily suspend Cone and drop back to the shell prompt\&. Cone remains suspended in the background, and may be restarted by using the shell\'s \fBfg\fR command\&. .if n \{\ .sp .\} .RS 4 .it 1 an-trap .nr an-no-space-flag 1 .nr an-break-flag 1 .br .ps +1 \fBNote\fR .ps -1 .br .PP Connections to remote mail servers may be disconnected for inactivity if Cone remains suspended for a prolonged period of time\&. When suspended, Cone cannot maintain any active connections to remote mail servers\&. .sp .5v .RE .PP The \fB\-c\fR option names a directory where Cone saves its configuration files, and defaults to $HOME/\&.cone\&. The configuration directory will be created, if necessary\&. .PP The \fB\-r\fR option recovers a backup copy of Cone\'s configuration file\&. This option is primarily used when remote configuration is enabled, but the folder that contains Cone\'s configuration on a remote server was deleted, or is not available\&. In all cases, Cone makes a daily local configuration file backup\&. The \fB\-r\fR option searches for local configuration file backups, and offers an option to restore the backup copy\&. .SS "Reading local mail with Cone" .PP Cone reads local mail from either maildirs (the preferred format) or mailbox files (or "mboxes")\&. When mboxes are used, Cone does not read the system mailbox file directly (usually /var/spool/\fIsomething\fR)\&. All messages in the system mailbox are automatically moved to $HOME/Inbox, which is then accessed as if it was the system mailbox\&. Starting Cone for the first time on an mbox\-based system automatically copies all existing mail from the system mailbox file to $HOME/Inbox\&. .PP This is an intentional design choice\&. Normal user application cannot create new files in /var/spool; all they can do is read the mailbox file from /var/spool\&. Therefore, the only way to update the mailbox file is by rewriting it from scratch (more or less)\&. While the mailbox file is in the process of being rewritten, if the Cone process is interrupted, or killed, the resulted in a corrupted system mailbox\&. There are way to minimize this vulnerability, but it cannot be eliminated completely\&. Some Linux kernels use an \(lqOOM killer\(rq that may terminate any process when the system memory is low\&. There is no way to completely prevent corrupted system mailbox files on those kernels\&. .PP Cone uses an alternative way of updating mboxes\&. Cone updates mboxes by creating a new mbox file separately, then replacing the original mbox file with the new version\&. Unfortunately this cannot be done with the system mailbox file, because of the restricted access rights on the system spool directory\&. To solve this problem Cone automatically copies the system mailbox file to $HOME/Inbox, each time the system mailbox file is opened and whenever new mail is available\&. .SS "Viewing MIME attachments" .PP Cone displays text and simple HTML content by itself\&. Other kinds of attachments may be viewed by using a helper script\&. Cone invokes a helper script to open a MIME attachment\&. The helper script\'s name is \(lq\fITYPE\fR\&.\fISUBTYPE\fR\&.filter\(rq, where \(lqTYPE\(rq and \(lqSUBTYPE\(rq corresponds to the MIME type and subtype, accordingly\&. Cone looks for helper scripts in $HOME/\&.cone (or the directory specified by \fB\-c\fR) and in /usr/share/cone\&. .PP For example, a helper script named \(lqIMAGE\&.GIF\&.filter\(rq, if installed, is invoked to process image/gif MIME attachments\&. .sp .it 1 an-trap .nr an-no-space-flag 1 .nr an-break-flag 1 .br .ps +1 \fBHelper scripts\fR .RS 4 .PP Cone runs each helper script twice: .sp .if n \{\ .RS 4 .\} .nf TYPE\&.SUBTYPE\&.filter check \fItype/subtype\fR .fi .if n \{\ .RE .\} .PP When the first argument is \(lqcheck\(rq, the helper script should terminate with a zero exit code if it is willing to process an attachment whose MIME type is specified by the second argument\&. A script or a program that\'s has multiple \(lqTYPE\&.SUBTYPE\&.filter\(rq links may use the second argument to identify the attachment\'s mime type\&. If the helper script is unable to process the attachment, at this time, it should terminate with a non\-zero exit code\&. .PP The default helper script for image attachments terminates with a non\-zero exit code if the \fBDISPLAY\fR environment variable is not initialized\&. When invoked from an X\-Windows terminal, image attachments will be automatically displayed; and image attachments are ignored otherwise on non\-graphical consoles\&. .sp .if n \{\ .RS 4 .\} .nf TYPE\&.SUBTYPE\&.filter filter \fItype/subtype\fR \fIfilename\fR .fi .if n \{\ .RE .\} .PP If the helper script initially terminates with a zero exit code, it will be invoked again after the MIME attachment is downloaded and decoded\&. The first argument will be \(lqfilter\(rq, and the attachment\'s filename is specified by the third argument\&. .if n \{\ .sp .\} .RS 4 .it 1 an-trap .nr an-no-space-flag 1 .nr an-break-flag 1 .br .ps +1 \fBNote\fR .ps -1 .br .PP This is a temporary file, whose extension will not necessary be the file extension associated with this MIME type\&. .sp .5v .RE .PP The helper script should read and process the file specified by the third argument\&. Cone interprets anything the helper script writes to standard output as HTML\&. .if n \{\ .sp .\} .RS 4 .it 1 an-trap .nr an-no-space-flag 1 .nr an-break-flag 1 .br .ps +1 \fBNote\fR .ps -1 .br .PP Cone waits until the helper script terminates before displaying the rest of the message\&. Most helper scripts should run in the background\&. However, note that Cone removes the temporary file when the original message is closed; the temporary file may be removed any time after the helper script terminates\&. The helper script should make its own private copy of the file, if necessary\&. .sp .5v .RE .RE .SS "Activating URLs" .PP Cone has limited ability to activate URLs in HTML messages\&. Cone handles \(lqmailto:\(rq URLs by itself\&. For other URLs Cone runs /usr/share/cone/\fImethod\fR\&.handler with the URL passed as an argument\&. .PP Cone installs http\&.handler (hard linked to https\&.handler)\&. This script checks if firefox or mozilla binaries are found in the current \fBPATH\fR, and runs them\&. .if n \{\ .sp .\} .RS 4 .it 1 an-trap .nr an-no-space-flag 1 .nr an-break-flag 1 .br .ps +1 \fBNote\fR .ps -1 .br .PP Cone also looks \fImethod\fR\&.handler in $HOME/\&.cone (or the directory specified by \fB\-c\fR) in addition to /usr/share/cone\&. .sp .5v .RE .SH "FILES" .PP $HOME/\&.cone .RS 4 Configuration files, and other application data\&. May be modified by the \fB\-c\fR option\&. .RE .PP /usr/share/cone/IMAGE\&.GIF\&.filter, /usr/share/cone/IMAGE\&.JPEG\&.filter, /usr/share/cone/IMAGE\&.PNG\&.filter, /usr/share/cone/APPLICATION\&.PDF\&.filter .RS 4 Default helper scripts distributed with Cone\&. .RE .SH "SEE ALSO" .PP \fBmailtool\fR(1), \fBsendmail\fR(8)\&. .SH "AUTHOR" .PP \fBSam Varshavchik\fR .RS 4 .RE