Catch-all forward without POP account

[Swift-AU]

Hi all,

Here's the situation.

I want to set up a catch-all on a domain such that all e-mail is forwarded to an external e-mail address (i.e. different domain). However I can't for the life of me see how I can do this, as there doesn't appear to be a way of deleting the default POP account (which I need to delete, otherwise it will collect e-mail for its own user name). The only way around it I could think of was to set up the catch-all to be directed to the default POP account, and have the default POP account forward all e-mail to the external address. However this doesn't seem to work, and it would also mean the POP account would soon fill up, as the messages wouldn't get deleted (as they were never downloaded).

So, what's the solution? Am I missing something obvious?

Thanks in advance.

-Swift

[kark]

One (dirty) way for a work around is to make a file called .forward in the /home/user directory with the E-mail address in it. Don't forget to chmod 755 the file.

[nobaloney]

Here's the way we do it:

We set up a catchall, to, for example, "me@elsewhere.example.com".

Then we set up a forward for the domain username, to the same address, for example, "domainuser@example.com -> me@elsewhere.example.com".

The forward overrides the mailbox setting, and the mail does get forwarded rather than remaining on the server.

Jeff

[Swift-AU]

Thanks Jeff. That's definately good news - I'll give it a go.

Was very frustrating not being able to do this. I'm currently mirgrating some 200 odd domains from a Plesk box, and a good 50% of them have no POP accounts at all - only a catch all directed to an external account. If I had to change their main login name to avoid it accidently picking up mail that should have been forwarded to the external account, it would have been a nightmare informing users of their new login names etc.

Thanks again.

Cheers...
Swift

[nobaloney]

Unfortunately if any of them have mailboxes you'll have to tell them to use mailname@example.com as their login name instead of just mailname.

We found it wasn't too hard for our clients to learn :) .

Jeff

[Swift-AU]

Yeah, I've been working through the other 50%, sending a fax with the new e-mail login details. The only problems that are occuring are for those who use a POP3 virus scanner, like Norton Antivirus. They change their pop account name from user%mail.theirsite.com (which the pop scanner automatically set up) to user@theirsite.com, and of course they need to set it to user@theirsite.com%mail.theirsite.com. Damn I hate POP3 AV scanners!

Cheers...
Swift

[netstability]

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread...

But I am having an issue with this.

It seems when I set up a catch-all to the domain user, then a forward to an external address the catch-all no longer functions as a catch-all and the only thing forwarded is the exact address.
How do I get it to forward everything?

Thanks!

[Swift-AU]

It would seem the rule of a forward overriding the POP mailbox doesn't work for locally delivered mail. For example, I have a client that uses a PHP script to do an e-mail blast to several thousand e-mail addresses. All the bounce messages end up getting stored in the POP account, even though there is a forward in place on the default POP account. Is there a way to fix this, as it's frustrating having the default POP account continually filling up with hundreds of MB's worth of e-mail!

Cheers...
Swift