To forward an email from one address to another, you can use the /home/<username>/.forward file or /etc/aliases file.

/home/<username>/.forward

The forward file can be used to forward email from user1@example.com to user2@example.com. For example, to forward emails sent to webmaster to John Doe, you would first need to create a user account for webmaster. Then, create the .forward file for webmaster.

[root@server1 ~]# touch /home/webmaster/.forward

In the forward file, add a rule to forward emails from webmaster to John Doe.

webmaster: john.doe

The /var/log/maillog should show the email was forwarded from webmaster to John Doe.

Mar 28 20:5:17 mail postfix/local[4604]: 1426A5FFEC: to=<john.doe@example.com>, orig_to=<webmaster@example.com>,. . .

To forward emails to two or more recipients, separate the recipients with a comma.

webmaster: john.doe,jane.doe

Emails can also be forwarded to an external email address. For example, to forward emails from webmaster to john.doe@domain.com.

[root@server1 ~]# cat /home/natalie/.forward
webmaster: john.doe@domain.com

Instead of forwarding email to a user's email inbox, the email can be sent to a file, usually for logging purposes. For example, if there is a Web form that lets users email their feedback or surveys, these can be logged to a file.

[root@server1 ~]# cat /home/<username>/.forward
surveys: /var/log/surveys
feedback: /var/log/feedback

/etc/aliases

An advantage of forwarding emails using the /etc/aliases file instead of the /home/<username>/.forward files is that the /etc/aliases file is that you can have a single file to controlling the forwarding of emails. Also, if you want to forward emails from webmaster to John Doe, you do not need to create a user account for webmaster.

For example, to forward emails from webmaster@example.com to john.doe@example.com.

[root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/aliases
webmaster: john.doe

If you want to forward email to two or more recipients, separate each recipient with a comma.

[root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/aliases
webmaster: johne.doe,jane.doe

After editing the /etc/aliases file, the newaliases command must be run to update the aliases database.

[root@server1 ~]# newaliases

The /etc/aliases file probably starts with some comments and then two default entries:

• postmaster: root
• MAILER-DAEMON: postmaster

These default entries forward mail sent to the MAILER-DAEMON or postmaster to root.

[root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/aliases
#
# The following two aliases must be present to be RFC-compliant. 
# It is important to resolve them to 'a person' who reads mail routinely. 
# 
postmaster: root
MAILER-DAEMON: postmaster

Instead of forwarding email to a users email inbox, the email can be sent to a file, usually for logging purposes. For example, if there is a Web form that lets users email their feedback or surveys, these can be logged to a file.

[root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/aliases
surveys: /var/log/surveys
feedback: /var/log/feedback