I'm getting a lot of mail in my root
user's mail account. This appears to be mostly reports and errors from things like cron
scripts. I'm trying to work though and solve these things, possibly even have them be piped to some sort of "dashboard" – but until then how can I have these messages go to my personal e-mail account instead?
Email Configuration – How to Change or Forward Root’s Email Address
emailmail-transport-agentmonitoringroot
Best Answer
Any user, including root, can forward their local email by putting the forwarding address in a file called
~/.forward
. You can have multiple addresses there, all on one line and separated by comma. If you want both local delivery and forwarding, putroot@localhost
as one of the addresses.The system administrator can define email aliases in the file
/etc/aliases
. This file contains lines likeroot: cwd@mailhost.example.com, /root/mailbox
; the effect is the same as havingcwd@mailhost.example.com, /root/mailbox
in~root/.forward
. You may need to run a program such asnewaliases
after changing/etc/aliases
.Note that the workings of
.forward
and/etc/aliases
depend on your MTA. Most MTAs implement the main features provided by the traditional sendmail, but check your MTA's documentation.