Updated: 2022/Sep/29

Please read Privacy Policy. It's for your privacy.

FORWARD(5)                    File Formats Manual                   FORWARD(5)

NAME
     forward - mail forwarding instructions

DESCRIPTION
     The .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
     .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 /etc/shells.

     For example, if a .forward file contained the following lines:

           nobody@NetBSD.org
           "|/usr/bin/vacation nobody"

     Mail would be forwarded to <nobody@NetBSD.org> and to the program
     /usr/bin/vacation with the single argument nobody.

     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.

     For example, if user chris had a .forward file containing the following
     lines:

           chris@otherhost
           \chris

     One copy of mail would be forwarded to chris@otherhost and another copy
     would be retained as mail for local user chris.

FILES
     $HOME/.forward  The user's forwarding instructions.

SEE ALSO
     sendmail(1), aliases(5), mailaddr(7)

NetBSD 10.99                     July 2, 1996                     NetBSD 10.99