xref: /freebsd/share/man/man5/forward.5 (revision a0409676120c1e558d0ade943019934e0f15118d)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1996
2.\"	Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
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32.\" $FreeBSD$
33.\"
34.Dd July 2, 1996
35.Dt FORWARD 5
36.Os
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm forward
39.Nd mail forwarding instructions
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Nm .forward
43file contains a list of mail addresses or programs
44that the user's mail should be redirected to.
45If the
46file is not present, then no mail forwarding will be done.
47Mail may also be forwarded as the standard input to a program
48by prefixing the line
49with the normal shell pipe symbol (|).
50If arguments
51are to be passed to the command, then the entire line
52should be enclosed in quotes.
53For security reasons, the
54.Nm .forward
55file must be owned by the user the mail is being sent to,
56or by root, and the user's shell must be listed in
57.Pa /etc/shells .
58.Pp
59For example, if a
60.Nm .forward
61file contained the following lines:
62.Bd -literal -offset indent
63nobody@FreeBSD.org
64"|/usr/bin/vacation nobody"
65.Ed
66.Pp
67Mail would be forwarded to
68.Aq nobody@FreeBSD.org
69and to the program
70.Pa /usr/bin/vacation
71with the single argument
72.Ar nobody .
73.Pp
74If a local user address is prefixed with a backslash
75character, mail is delivered directly to the user's
76mail spool file, bypassing further redirection.
77.Pp
78For example, if user chris had a
79.Nm .forward
80file containing the following lines:
81.Bd -literal -offset indent
82chris@otherhost
83\echris
84.Ed
85.Pp
86One copy of mail would be forwarded to
87.Ar chris@otherhost
88and another copy would be retained as mail for local user chris.
89.Sh FILES
90.Bl -tag -width $HOME/.forward -compact
91.It Pa $HOME/.forward
92The user's forwarding instructions.
93.El
94.Sh SEE ALSO
95.Xr aliases 5 ,
96.Xr sendmail 8
97