where does my mail to root go?

[papaschtroumpf]

if I do:

 

mail -s test username

this is a test

.

 

then the user gets the email (I have a .forward file setup so really the mail gets forwded to my gmail account)

 

 

if I do

 

mail -s test root

this is a test

.

 

then check mail by doing "mail -u root" the system tells me root doesn't have mail. If I add a .forward like I do for the user account nothing gets forwarded either.

 

Is there something magic about root's email?

 

 

 

 

EDIT: after doing some research, I modified the /etc/aliases file to send root's mail to the user account (it was set up originally to send it to the postfix account) and that seems to fix the problem, or at least root's mail is forwarded to the user.

Was this the right way to fix it? is root not considered a HUMAN? why does root have to be aliased?

Edited October 18, 2005 by papaschtroumpf