Out-of-the-Office Reply

You can setup an out-of-the-office reply - also known as a vacation message - to notify people who send you email that you are away from the office.

To setup your out-of-office reply do the following:

Log into the unix shell server using ssh.
Create a file called .vacation.msg to contain the email you want to have automatically emailed. The contents of the file should look similar to the following:

Subject: Out of the office

I will be away from the office from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2008. I am unlikely to read email during this time. 

I will attend to all email on my return.

Note the blank line between Subject and I will attend...

Create a .forward file similar to the following.

\username, "|/usr/bin/vacation username"

In step 3 above, replace username with your username.

The \username option tells the mail server to keep a copy of the email in your local mailbox. If you would like to forward your email to another email address while you are way, replace \username with an email address.

last modified 2008-10-23 11:15