Email aliases, forwarding and catch-all

Email aliases, forwarding and catch-all

In https://panel.cloudweb.sk, on the hosting page under the Email tab, there are three more sub-tabs besides Mailboxes: Aliases, Forwards and Catch-All. All three work against the domain selected at the top of the domain switcher.

Alias – another address for an existing mailbox

An alias is a second address on the same domain that delivers into an existing mailbox. On the Aliases sub-tab, the New alias button opens a form:

• Alias Name – the part before the @ (e.g. sales).
• Forward To (Mailbox) – a dropdown that only lists mailboxes that already exist on this domain. So at least one mailbox has to exist before you can create an alias.

To the sender it looks like a normal address – it is generally not used to sign in, only to deliver into the chosen mailbox.

Forward – sends mail outside the domain

A forward receives mail on an address within your domain and sends it on to an external address (outside this domain), for example a Gmail or Outlook account. On the Forwards sub-tab, the New forward button:

• Forward From – the part before the @ on this domain (does not need to match an existing mailbox).
• Forward To (External Email) – one or more addresses separated by commas.

The panel does not let you enter a destination on the same domain – it tells you to use an alias for forwarding within the domain instead. If you add a forward for a source address that already exists, the new destinations are merged into the existing ones (they are not replaced).

How this is implemented on the mail server

Aliases and forwards are the same thing at the mail-server level: an address with no password, carrying a list of destination addresses that incoming mail is redirected to. The difference between them exists purely in how the cloudweb panel validates and records them – an alias requires the destination to be an existing mailbox on the same domain, a forward requires a destination outside the domain. Neither one is a mailbox you can sign into.

Catch-All – catches everything else

Catch-all delivers mail addressed to any name that does not exist on the domain (typos, guessed addresses, and so on) to one chosen address. It is turned on and off from the Catch-All sub-tab by entering a destination email address and clicking Enable, or Disable once it is already on. The panel notes that a catch-all tends to attract spam, since it also collects randomly guessed addresses.

Deleting

Both aliases and forwards are removed with the Delete action on their row, after confirmation – deletion is irreversible and routing stops immediately.

Things to watch for

• Forwarding and SPF/DMARC. When you forward mail to an external mailbox, the receiving server sees it as delivered from our mail server, not directly from the original sender. If the original sender enforces strict SPF/DMARC policies, some external providers may flag forwarded mail as suspicious or reject it. This is a general limitation of email forwarding, not specific to this server.
• Loops. The panel does not check whether an alias or forward creates a cycle (e.g. alias A → alias B → alias A). When chaining several forwards/aliases, make sure the destination does not eventually point back to the source.
• An alias needs an existing mailbox. If the domain has no mailbox yet, the panel will not let you create an alias – create a mailbox first (see Mailboxes).