DOCUMENT ID: 1330-02

SYNOPSIS:    Using mail ".forward" in a heterogenous environment

OS RELEASE:  2.1, 2.4, 2.5

PRODUCT:     Solaris

KEYWORDS:    mail mailx mailtool forward


DESCRIPTION:

The use of the forwarding facility within mail systems is not as
straight forward as it appears.  The term "hetrogenous environment"
usually is defined "multivendors hardware and operating systems".  The
use of multiple versions of an operating system must also be considered
heterogenous. 

The primary use for ".forward" is for vacation or temporary relocation
of the addressee.  The vacation program is probably the most often
specified binary program.  Mail sorters like "Personal Postmaster" and
"procmail" are also used.  The executables for non-operating system
supplied programs are usually not available on all systems within a
business enterprise.  In a homogenous environment the programs may
simply be compiled and stored in the user's home directory. 
Occasionally there are "site" repositories for such programs. 

The hetrogenius environment requires special care.  An example which may
not be considered is Solaris X86, and Solaris Sparc both being at 2.4. 
The executable program specified in the user's ".forward" must be in the
executable format of the operating system the "mail" agent is executing. 
The mail agent inspects the user's home directory for the ".forward" and
takes the forwarding actions including invocation of executable objects. 

A rsh command could be used to allow a foreign binary to be executed. 
The rsh command must not fail, so be mindful of the special remote host
security issues. 

 References:
 Man pages: vacation(1), aliases(4B), mail(1), mailx(1), sendmail(1M)
 Comer, Douglas [1993] Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol III, pg 128


DATE APPROVED: 05/08/95