Nevis .forward
Tips
Some tips associated with a mail forwarding file, either
/a/mail/forward/$user
or
~/.forward
. You can use a forwarding file to
forward mail to another account, or perform additional mail processing such as
vacation messages.
(There are some more tips on
mail-related files at Nevis.)
Here are some reasons why a
/a/mail/forward/$user
or
~/.forward
file may not work.
- If you have a
/a/mail/forward/$user
file (where $user
is your account name), then a ~/.forward
file will be ignored. Use one or the other, not both. It's better to use /a/mail/forward/$user
, because if the server that contains your home directory goes down, your mail will still be forwarded properly.
- The syntax of the file may be incorrect. There is no "man" page for forwarding files. However, the syntax of the addr_n option in a sendmail aliases
file is the same as that of a line in a forwarding file.
- If you choose to use a
.forward
file, it must be stored in your home directory. In particular, it must be stored in your directory as seen by the Linux cluster. Use echo $HOME
to make sure you're putting the ~/.forward
file in the correct place.
- If the mail server can't mount your home directory, it can't see a
~/.forward
file. If your workstation is off, or is disconnected from the network, then the mail server cannot use the file to forward or otherwise process your mail. Instead, it will just append your message to your Nevis mail INBOX. Again, using the file /a/mail/forward/$user
will prevent this.
- Check the permissions on your home directory (
ls -ld $HOME
). Did you, in a burst of generosity, enable group- or world-write permissions
? Don't do this; not only will the mail server refuse to process any ~/.forward
or ~/.procmailrc
files in a directory with such permissions, but ssh
will be inhibited as well. In this case, you should restore your home directory's correct permissions with: chmod 755 $HOME