1.\" Copyright (c) 1996 2.\" Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by Mike Pritchard and 15.\" contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the author nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man5/forward.5,v 1.4.2.3 2001/07/21 09:16:52 schweikh Exp $ 33.\" 34.Dd January 17, 2023 35.Dt FORWARD 5 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm forward 39.Nd mail forwarding instructions 40.Sh DESCRIPTION 41The 42.Nm .forward 43file contains a list of mail addresses or programs 44that the user's mail should be redirected to. 45.Pp 46If the file is not present, then no mail forwarding will be done. 47Additionally, the manual page of the currently installed MTA should 48be consulted about the MTA's mail forwarding support. 49.Pp 50Mail may also be forwarded as the standard input to a program 51by prefixing the line 52with the normal shell pipe symbol (|). If arguments 53are to be passed to the command, then the entire line 54should be enclosed in quotes. For security reasons, the 55.Nm .forward 56file must be owned by the user the mail is being sent to, 57or by root, and the user's shell must be listed in 58.Pa /etc/shells . 59.Pp 60For example, if a 61.Nm .forward 62file contained the following lines: 63.Bd -literal -offset indent 64nobody@FreeBSD.org 65"|/usr/bin/vacation nobody" 66.Ed 67.Pp 68Mail would be forwarded to 69.Ar nobody@FreeBSD.org 70and to the program 71.Pa /usr/bin/vacation 72with the single argument 73.Ar nobody . 74.Pp 75If a local user address is prefixed with a backslash 76character, mail is delivered directly to the user's 77mail spool file, bypassing further redirection. 78.Pp 79For example, if user chris had a 80.Nm .forward 81file containing the following lines: 82.Bd -literal -offset indent 83chris@otherhost 84\echris 85.Ed 86.Pp 87One copy of mail would be forwarded to 88.Ar chris@otherhost 89and another copy would be retained as mail for local user chris. 90.Sh FILES 91.Bl -tag -width $HOME/.forward -compact 92.It Pa $HOME/.forward 93The user's forwarding instructions. 94.El 95.Sh SEE ALSO 96.Xr aliases 5 , 97.Xr dma 8 , 98.Xr sendmail 8 99