Linux
Administration
How to set up a Linux email .forward file correctly
(by Eddie)
1. Create a file called “.forward” in your home directory. If your username is “billg”, the file should (likely) be created at “/home/billg/.forward”. Stick the email address you’d like to forward emails to in that file. You can accomplish this quickly from the command line using the command “echo ‘billg@microsoft.com’ > /home/billg/.forward”
2. After you’ve done this, make sure you set the file so that it’s not world-writeable! (This is the step I overlooked). “chmod 644 /home/billg/.forward”
That’s it – your email should be forwarded correctly.
The reason it doesn’t work when the permissions aren’t set correctly is a security thing – just imagine the risks if anyone was able to write to your .forward file. As a precaution, the system will ignore the .forward file if it is world writeable.
Note by Colin: Not only does the file have to have restricted permissions, but the directory containing the file has to have restricted permissions. Sendmail’s log was very helpful in figuring that out.
