FORWARD(5) FreeBSD File Formats Manual FORWARD(5)
NAME
forward - email forwarding information file
DESCRIPTION
Users may put a .forward file in their home directory. If this file
exists, smtpd(8) forwards email to the destinations specified therein.
A .forward file contains a list of expansion values, as described in
aliases(5). Each expansion value should be on a line by itself.
Expansion is performed under the user ID of the .forward file owner.
Permissions on the .forward file are very strict and expansion is
rejected if the file is group or world-writable; if the home directory is
group writeable; or if the file is not owned by the user.
Users should avoid editing the .forward file directly, to prevent
delivery failures from occurring if a message arrives while the file is
not fully written. The best option is to use a temporary file and use
the mv(1) command to atomically overwrite the former .forward.
Alternatively, setting the sticky(8) bit on the home directory will cause
the .forward lookup to return a temporary failure, causing mails to be
deferred.
FILES
~/.forward Email forwarding information.
EXAMPLES
The following file forwards mail to "
[email protected]", and pipes the
same mail to "examplemda".
# empty lines are ignored
[email protected] # anything after # is ignored
"|/path/to/examplemda"
SEE ALSO
aliases(5), smtpd(8)
CAVEATS
The pipe `|' and :include: mechanisms are not allowed for the root user.
FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8 September 5, 2024 FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8