xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man5/forward.5 (revision 84e9c4d0dcfa9676379ffc97cb89759a0f9a1c00)

.\"	$NetBSD: forward.5,v 1.3 2013/07/09 09:41:30 njoly Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1996
.\"	Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>.  All rights reserved.
.\"
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.\"	This product includes software developed by Mike Pritchard and
.\"	contributors.
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.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
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.\" $FreeBSD: /repoman/r/ncvs/src/share/man/man5/forward.5,v 1.8 2004/07/03 18:29:22 ru Exp $
.\"
.Dd July 2, 1996
.Dt FORWARD 5
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm forward
.Nd mail forwarding instructions
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm .forward
file contains a list of mail addresses or programs
that the user's mail should be redirected to.
If the
file is not present, then no mail forwarding will be done.
Mail may also be forwarded as the standard input to a program
by prefixing the line
with the normal shell pipe symbol (|).
If arguments
are to be passed to the command, then the entire line
should be enclosed in quotes.
For security reasons, the
.Nm .forward
file must be owned by the user the mail is being sent to,
or by root, and the user's shell must be listed in
.Pa /etc/shells .
.Pp
For example, if a
.Nm .forward
file contained the following lines:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
nobody@NetBSD.org
"|/usr/bin/vacation nobody"
.Ed
.Pp
Mail would be forwarded to
.Aq nobody@NetBSD.org
and to the program
.Pa /usr/bin/vacation
with the single argument
.Ar nobody .
.Pp
If a local user address is prefixed with a backslash
character, mail is delivered directly to the user's
mail spool file, bypassing further redirection.
.Pp
For example, if user chris had a
.Nm .forward
file containing the following lines:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
chris@otherhost
\echris
.Ed
.Pp
One copy of mail would be forwarded to
.Ar chris@otherhost
and another copy would be retained as mail for local user chris.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width $HOME/.forward -compact
.It Pa $HOME/.forward
The user's forwarding instructions.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr sendmail 1 ,
.Xr aliases 5 ,
.Xr mailaddr 7