Subject: .forward file

From: Dave Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 15:41:06 -0700 (PDT)

This doesn't exactly fit into the realm of Pine but I'm getting no 
answers from SCO so I'll ask you people.

My MMDF mail handler (Please, no hissing) _seems_ to support a .forward 
file but SCO offers no documentation for it's use.  I pay for tech 
support but the support department seems to choose to not support the 
.forward file and suggested some workarounds using .maildelivery (which I 
DO use.)  But I feel like I'd still like to know how and what the 
.forward file is used for.  Maybe some docs (man page) from another UNIX?
(Unless restricted, of course)

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Hansen  
Wilshire Financial Services Group
[email-masked]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: [email-masked] (Chris D. Halverson)
Date: 30 Aug 1995 21:02:08 -0500

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave Hansen <[email-masked]> writes:
In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Dave Hansen) writes:

 Dave> My MMDF mail handler (Please, no hissing) _seems_ to support a
 Dave> .forward file but SCO offers no documentation for it's use.  I
 Dave> pay for tech support but the support department seems to choose
 Dave> to not support the .forward file and suggested some workarounds
 Dave> using .maildelivery (which I DO use.)  But I feel like I'd
 Dave> still like to know how and what the .forward file is used for.
 Dave> Maybe some docs (man page) from another UNIX?  (Unless
 Dave> restricted, of course)

Basically a forward file is used to (surprise) forward mail to another
account. It usually contains an email address, to which the MDA will
forward the mail to.

Alternately, a .forward file can be used to call an external program,
such as procmail such as:

"|IFS=' ' && exec /usr/local/bin/procmail -f- || exit 75 #cdh"

>From aliases(4) on a Solaris 2.4 machine:

  Automatic Forwarding
     When an alias (or address) is resolved to the name of a user
     on  the  local  host,  sendmail(1M)  checks for a ~/.forward
     file, owned by the intended recipient, in that  user's  home
     directory,  and  with  universal read access.  This file can
     contain one or more addresses or aliases as described above,
     each of which is sent a copy of the user's mail.
 
     Care must be taken to avoid creating addressing loops in the
      ~/.forward file.  When forwarding mail between machines, be
     sure that the destination machine does not return  the  mail
     to the sender through the operation of any YP aliases.  Oth-
     erwise, copies of the message may ``bounce.''  Usually,  the
     solution  is  to  change  the YP alias to direct mail to the
     proper destination.
 
     A backslash before a  username  inhibits  further  aliasing.
     For  instance,  to  invoke  the  vacation  program,  user js
     creates a ~/.forward file that contains the line:
 
          \js, "|/usr/ucb/vacation js"
 
     so that one copy of the message is sent  to  the  user,  and
     another is piped into the vacation program.

Hope this helps.

Chris

-- 
Chris D. Halverson                |  Network Engineer
Minnesota Regional Network        |  Voice: (612) 342-2838
511 11th Avenue South, Box 212    |  Email: [email-masked]
Minneapolis, MN  55415            |  WWW:   http://www.MR.Net/~cdh/
    PGP signed/encrypted mail accepted, finger for PGP public key