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.  However, the .forward mechanism differs from the aliases mechanism in
       that it disallows file inclusion (:include:) and it performs expansion 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 directly the .forward file 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 “user@example.com”, and pipes the same mail to “examplemda”.

             # empty lines are ignored

             user@example.com        # anything after # is ignored
             "|/path/to/examplemda"

SEE ALSO

       aliases(5), smtpd(8)

Debian                                           March 13, 2015                                       FORWARD(5)