This information is retained for instructor use only. All activities discussed are historical as all our servers now use the control panel for forwarding, default and other e-mail activities.

The basic format for transmitting e-mail through use of the .domains file is:

RECEIVING_ADDRESS [spc] FORWARDING_ADDRESS

Below is a simple working example that covers most uses:

info@mybusiness.com #
sam@mybusiness.com Sam
mark@mybusiness.com somewhere@somewhere.com
me@mybusiness.com you@there.com
default@mybusiness.com default
mybusiness.com default

Following the rules established by this Domains file, any mail sent to info@mybusiness.com will be forwarded to MReply. The "#" tells the mail program to forward any mail to MReply. The rules you establish in MReply will then control what happens with that message (autorespond and send to the "master POP", etc.).

The next line establishes what to do when the mail is sent to Sam@mybusiness.com. All mail so addressed will be forwarded to local user "Sam". This means that Sam has a POP account set up and we want his mail to go to that account.

Mail going to mark@mybusiness.com will be forwarded to somewhere@somewhere.com. The same goes for me@mybusiness.com. The users "mark" and "me" don't have local POP accounts and we must forward their mail to their real POP e-mail address. When we do this it is called an "alias" or "forwarding address." It is great way to advertise our domain while giving others a convenient and stable e-mail address. For example, suppose your parents are always changing their dial-up service and their POP e-mail address is always changing. You just add an alias to your Domains file that points to their current POP address. For example:

parents@mybusiness.com email-address@their-isp.com

Then they place the alias in the "reply address" section of their e-mail client and leave the e-mail address as specified by their dial-in service provider. Therefore, when they send mail the message will have the "reply to" set as parents@mybusiness.com. When they give out their address verbally or in writing, it should be the same parents@mybusiness.com address. Now you have two great advantages, a stable e-mail address that can follow them anyplace they chose to go and they are advertising your business. Yes, that's right. More than one deal has been generated by someone looking at an e-mail address and saying, "I wonder what mybusiness.com does?" A little www.mybusiness.com checking on the browser and a deal is born.

The last 2 lines are very important. "default" is the default user name that you gave us when you had us set the account up. That is the user that has ownership of the directory. Any mail going to default@mybusiness.com is going to be sent to default's local POP account. The last line is the "catch-all". This means that any unrecognized mail will automatically be sent to user "default". So if you were to send mail to lamer@mybusiness.com it would automatically be forwarded to "default" because there is no entry in the Domains file for lamer. The person who picks up mail from the default account is called the "master POP."

Sending mail to more than one forwarding address

You can have as many forwardings as you like but keep in mind that if we forward mark@mybusiness.com to somewhere@somewhere.com, the somewhere account must be a valid account at somewhere.com

Suppose you want to have mail sent to bigshot@mybusiness.com to 2 places. This is how you would do it:

bigshot@mybusiness.com tom@officeonweb.net,tim@printpage.com

So mail sent to bigshot@mybusiness.com will be forwarded to both 
                tom@officeonweb.net AND Tim@printpage.com.


If you want your mail, there are a few items that are VERY IMPORTANT:

• There can be NO spaces before ANY of the lines in the file
• The last 2 lines MUST STAY the last 2 lines.
• There can be only a SINGLE SPACE in between address entries