xref: /freebsd/share/man/man5/forward.5 (revision e0c4386e7e71d93b0edc0c8fa156263fc4a8b0b6)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1996
2.\"	Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>.  All rights reserved.
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32.Dd July 2, 1996
33.Dt FORWARD 5
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm forward
37.Nd mail forwarding instructions
38.Sh DESCRIPTION
39The
40.Nm .forward
41file contains a list of mail addresses or programs
42that the user's mail should be redirected to.
43If the
44file is not present, then no mail forwarding will be done.
45Mail may also be forwarded as the standard input to a program
46by prefixing the line
47with the normal shell pipe symbol (|).
48If arguments
49are to be passed to the command, then the entire line
50should be enclosed in quotes.
51For security reasons, the
52.Nm .forward
53file must be owned by the user the mail is being sent to,
54or by root, and the user's shell must be listed in
55.Pa /etc/shells .
56.Pp
57For example, if a
58.Nm .forward
59file contained the following lines:
60.Bd -literal -offset indent
61nobody@FreeBSD.org
62"|/usr/bin/vacation nobody"
63.Ed
64.Pp
65Mail would be forwarded to
66.Aq nobody@FreeBSD.org
67and to the program
68.Pa /usr/bin/vacation
69with the single argument
70.Ar nobody .
71.Pp
72If a local user address is prefixed with a backslash
73character, mail is delivered directly to the user's
74mail spool file, bypassing further redirection.
75.Pp
76For example, if user chris had a
77.Nm .forward
78file containing the following lines:
79.Bd -literal -offset indent
80chris@otherhost
81\echris
82.Ed
83.Pp
84One copy of mail would be forwarded to
85.Ar chris@otherhost
86and another copy would be retained as mail for local user chris.
87.Sh FILES
88.Bl -tag -width $HOME/.forward -compact
89.It Pa $HOME/.forward
90The user's forwarding instructions.
91.El
92.Sh SEE ALSO
93.Xr aliases 5 ,
94.Xr sendmail 8
95