Fowarding your mail

When an account is created for you on the Nevis Linux cluster, you automatically get an e-mail address (as described at the top of the mail readers page). However, you may wish to receive your mail elsewhere.

You have two choices:

1. Create a .forward file in your home directory on the Linux cluster. Put in the e-mail address that should receive any e-mail received at Nevis.

   There is no "man" page for .forward files. However, the syntax of the addr_n option in a sendmail aliases file is the same as that of a line in a .forward file. A separate page has been prepared for typical problems.

   The advantage of this approach is that it gives you complete control over how and when your mail is forwarded. The disadvantage is that, if you don't do much work on the cluster, you can forget that the .forward is there, what your account password is, or other details.

2. Ask a systems administrator to create a mail alias for you on the mail server. This is the most efficient way for your mail to be forwarded.

   The disadvantage of this approach is that you don't have direct control if you change your mind. You can check the list of mail aliases with the command:

   ypcat -k aliases | less (The ypcat output is long and unsorted; you'll want to use less, sort, or grep to filter the results.) However, you can't change the alias without asking a systems administrator again.

Old mail accounts

Important note: Your mail account is subject to being locked or cancelled as of the moment your formal connection to Nevis Labs is terminated. The issue is not whether you have a legitimate continuing connection with the research at Nevis; the issue is whether external auditors might conceivably consider that an "old" account would pose a security risk.

Therefore, when you leave Nevis, you'll want to have something done about your mail. You should arrange to have it forwarded as described above.

What happens if you leave without giving any instructions about your mail account?

• If your home directory has a .forward file, it will be left as it is. All your mail will be fowarded to the address in that file.

  If your home directory is to moved, archived, or deleted after you've left Nevis, the mail address in your .forward file be put into the mail server's aliases file instead.

  The mail alias will remain indefinitely, until you ask for it be removed.

• If you do not have a .forward file, your account name will be put into the "locked mail" list. If you're curious to see who is on the list now, use the command: ypmatch lock-mail-users netgroup All mail sent to names in this list will be rejected by our mail server with the message "no such user".

• What happens to your old mail files is partly a function of what happens to your home directory. If you kept your mail in your home directory, then your mail will be removed with your home directory. If you kept your mail on the server, it's likely that those files will also be removed when your home directory is -- but they may be left in place if they take up only a small fraction of the available disk space.

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