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Forwarding your Email

You can set up unlimited e-mail aliases for email addresses which are to forward to an
address other than your POP3 mailbox.  Instructions on this subject are found on this page. Instructions on configuring your mail program are available elsewhere on our site.

First, someone sends mail! The address on the mail is foo@bar.com. The user foo and the domain bar.com physically exist on our number X server. Because of how DNS routing works (completely different discussion), the mail message is routed to the appropriate server, good old number X. Our configuration files then decipher that the mail for domain bar.com goes to local user foo. In the truest sense, this user is foo@wwwX.Stellar Design.com, but because of the virtual domain configuration, it can appear as foo@bar.com. Just make sure to use your Local ISP as the SMTP server.

Next, our server checks the home directory for the user foo. What it is looking for is further instructions on routing the mail message. The first thing it will look for is the ".domains" file as a means of having 'virtual users' for your domain. It is not elaborate by any means; it is just effective.

Sample .domains file:

info@bar.com #
list-request@bar.com #
foo@bar.com foo
root@bar.com root@shaver.com
questions@bar.com joe@somewhereelse.com
other@bar.com jim@other.net
bar.com jim@other.net

IMPORTANT: Please read the following information :-)

1. The simplest way to edit your .domains file is with FTP, open your site with FTP, the first file listed should be you .domains file, Transfer it over to your local directory (in ASCII mode), click view, edit it, save it, transfer it back. All Done :-)

2. Always add new entries to the top of the file.

3. This is a simple text file. It is formatted with a real or imaginary address FLUSH TO THE LEFT MARGIN OF THE FILE, a space, and then a real address on the right. You should not leave blank lines or spaces at the left margin (unless you want to effectively "comment out" an address line).

4. The line that addresses your primary address, foo@bar.com. It can go to your local account or to another off-site account.

5. The line that is at the bottom (and must be the last line of the file) is the catch-all for the domain; the forwarding address MUST be valid, either locally or elsewhere.

6. Please don't put a line with an imaginary address on the left and an imaginary address on the right. It can cause a mail loop - Yuck, yuck, phooey, phooey!! It can cause many problems with our mail system.

7. DO NOT use the control panel to edit your .domains file, it will corrupt it. Use your FTP or Telnet Client.

8. The lines that end with the # sign are routed to your mreply configuration .

Now say you want forward some of the mail, from bob@bar.com to bob@aol.com, the .domains file would look like this:

Now say you want forward some of the mail to different addresses, from bob@bar.com to bob@aol.com and to bob@mci.net. The .domains file would look like this:

Please note that in the above example, there are no spaces before or after the comma on the top line.

Now say you want all mail that is sent to your domain (except for foo@bar.com) forwarded to you local ISP mailbox, the .domains file would look like this:

To Forward all mail without exception, simply remove the foo@bar.com jim2 line, leaving only the last line.

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