Route Administrative Mail to a Real Administrator

See also: Postfix Authenticated Smarthost

See also: SSMTP

By default on Linux servers, administrative notices are dumped into the root mailbox, often never to be seen.

Here, we make sure administrative notices are e-mailed to a real administratior where they have a chance of being seen and acted upon.

This assumes the server is already able to send mail. This is frequently not the case in the modern world. See the links above if mail is not being forwarded after taking these steps.

To forward administrative mail to a real user, edit /etc/aliases:

vi /etc/aliases

Edit the bottom of the file:

# Person who should get root's mail
root:           you@your.domain

Then run the newaliases command to activate the changes:

Exim MTA does not require this step.

newaliases