.TH FORWARD 5 "$Mdocdate: November 13 2013 $" ""
.SH NAME
.ad l
\fB\%forward\fP
\- email forwarding information file
.SH DESCRIPTION
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Users may put a
\fB\%.forward\fP
file in their home directory.
If this file exists,
\fBsmtpd\fP(8)
forwards email to the destinations specified therein.
.PP
A
\fB\%.forward\fP
file contains a list of expansion values, as described in
\fBaliases\fP(5).
Each expansion value should be on a line by itself.
However, the
\fB\%.forward\fP
mechanism differs from the aliases mechanism in that it disallows
file inclusion
(:include:)
and it performs expansion under the user ID of the
\fB\%.forward\fP
file owner.
.PP
Permissions on the
\fB\%.forward\fP
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.
.PP
Users should avoid editing directly the
\fB\%.forward\fP
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
\fBmv\fP(1)
command to atomically overwrite the former
\fB\%.forward\fP.
Alternatively, setting the
\fBsticky\fP(8)
bit on the home directory will cause the
\fB\%.forward\fP
lookup to return a temporary failure, causing mails to be deferred.
.SH FILES
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.RS 5
.TP
.B ~/.forward
Email forwarding information.
.RE
.SH EXAMPLES
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The following file forwards mail to
``user@example.com'',
and pipes the same mail to
``examplemda''.
.RS 4
.nf
# empty lines are ignored
user@example.com	# anything after # is ignored
"|/path/to/examplemda"
.RE
.SH SEE ALSO
.ad l
\fBaliases\fP(5),
\fBsmtpd\fP(8)