# "You have mail." message received.



## Rumor (Aug 4, 2010)

Hi, I'm still a little new to FreeBSD and I haven't used unix shells in a while either. I'm running FreeBSD on VirtualPC 2007 and whenever I boot the virtual hard drive, I have a message stating that I have mail. How can I check the mail?

Thank you in advance.


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## SirDice (Aug 4, 2010)

Use the mail(1) command.


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## Rumor (Aug 4, 2010)

Thanks, I'll try it out.


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## SirDice (Aug 4, 2010)

Mail is a bit spartan though. You may want to install mail/mutt or mail/alpine.


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## UNIXgod (Aug 4, 2010)

you can forward it to your outside addresses with setting up periodic.conf


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## SirDice (Aug 4, 2010)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> you can forward it to your outside addresses with setting up periodic.conf



No need. Just edit /etc/aliases and point root's mail to the external address.


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## UNIXgod (Aug 4, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> No need. Just edit /etc/aliases and point root's mail to the external address.



does it matter if it's /etc/aliases or /etc/mail/aliases? Would both need to be edited?


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## bojan (Aug 4, 2010)

How about creating .forward on the /root/ ?

Any advantages/disadvantages .forward vs /etc/mail/alias?


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## DutchDaemon (Aug 5, 2010)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> does it matter if it's /etc/aliases or /etc/mail/aliases? Would both need to be edited?



It's a symlink ..


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## DutchDaemon (Aug 5, 2010)

bojan said:
			
		

> How about creating .forward on the /root/ ?
> 
> Any advantages/disadvantages .forward vs /etc/mail/aliases?



A .forward rewrites the sender address (it gets delivered and resent). Use aliases to keep the mail 'intact'.


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