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From: karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: "Forward to " in .forward mishandled.
Message-ID: <1991May8.181757.26345@oar.net>
Date: 8 May 91 19:15:39 GMT
References: <22524@shlump.lkg.dec.com>
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Organization: Viento Gigabit Testbed, Ohio Supercomputer Center
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lan_csse@netrix.nac.dec.com writes:
   One of the
   time-honored ways of doing this is via the $HOME/.forward file, so he
   created such a file for nm:
	   echo Forward to u1.m1.lkg.dec.com, u2.m2.nac.dec.com >.forward
   ...we eventually realized
   that the problem was that sendmail was telling m1 to send the mail to:
	   RCPT To:<Forward to u1.m1.lkg.dec.com>
   and m1 had no user "Forward to u1", so it failed.

If you RTFM aliases(5) and get to about page 3 (or so it is on this
SunOS 4.1.1 machine; similarly placed for any sendmail installation),
you will find this paragraph:

|   Automatic Forwarding
|      When an alias (or address) is resolved to the name of a user
|      on  the  local  host,  sendmail  checks for a .forward file,
|      owned by the intended recipient, in that user's home  direc-
|      tory, and with universal read access.  This file can contain
|      one or more addresses or aliases as described above, each of
|      which is sent a copy of the user's mail.

On a nearby DEC 5500 (I think) running a recent Ultrix incantation,
the man page is actually much more abbreviated but still reads:

|      After aliasing has been done, local and valid recipients who have
|      a ``.forward'' file in their home directory have messages for-
|      warded to the list of users defined in that file.

Nowhere will you find any reference to the use of the phrase "Forward
to."  In fact, I was unaware that _any_ UNIXish mailer _except_ the
patently braindead and simplistic /bin/mail on SysV boxes understood
the phrase "Forward to," and even there, it must be in the mail file
/usr/mail/userid, and not in ~userid/.forward.  (That is, unless this
is something new for SysVRel4, which I have yet to see firsthand.)

.forward is and always has been documented as containing a set of
usernames only, never once it having been suggested that it contain
some pointless commentary about forwarding, given the purpose for
which the file exists anyhow.  As for "compatibility with other
mailers," it's not an issue of compatibility as far as I can see,
since one can already describe not less than 3 ways of handling the
matter -- there is no standard to which to adhere.
	1. "Forward to someplace" in /usr/mail/userid.
	2. ~userid/.forward containing "someplace."
	3. Potentially, based on your comment, ~userid/.forward
	   containing "Forward to someplace."
Hardly any standard present, and hardly worth adherence.

--karl