Controls for .forward files

For the .forward files to be an effective part of mail delivery, ensure that the following controls (mostly permissions settings) are correctly applied.

• The .forward file must be writable only by the owner of the file. This restriction prevents other users from breaking security.

• The paths that lead to the home directory must be owned and writable by root only. For example, if a .forward file is in /export/home/terry, /export and /export/home must be owned and writable by root only.

• The actual home directory should be writable only by the user.

• The .forward file cannot be a symbolic link, and this file cannot have more than one hard link.