ALIASES(5) ALIASES(5)
NNAAMMEE
aliases - aliases file for sendmail
SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS
aalliiaasseess
DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
This file describes user ID aliases used by sendmail. The file resides
in /etc/mail and is formatted as a series of lines of the form
name: addr_1, addr_2, addr_3, . . .
The _n_a_m_e is the name to alias, and the _a_d_d_r___n are the aliases for that
name. _a_d_d_r___n can be another alias, a local username, a local filename,
a command, an include file, or an external address.
LLooccaall UUsseerrnnaammee
username
The username must be available via getpwnam(3).
LLooccaall FFiilleennaammee
/path/name
Messages are appended to the file specified by the full pathname
(starting with a slash (/))
CCoommmmaanndd
|command
A command starts with a pipe symbol (|), it receives messages
via standard input.
IInncclluuddee FFiillee
:include: /path/name
The aliases in pathname are added to the aliases for _n_a_m_e_.
EE--MMaaiill AAddddrreessss
user@domain
An e-mail address in RFC 822 format.
Lines beginning with white space are continuation lines. Another way
to continue lines is by placing a backslash directly before a newline.
Lines beginning with # are comments.
Aliasing occurs only on local names. Loops can not occur, since no
message will be sent to any person more than once.
If an alias is found for _n_a_m_e, sendmail then checks for an alias for
_o_w_n_e_r_-_n_a_m_e. If it is found and the result of the lookup expands to a
single address, the envelope sender address of the message is rewritten
to that address. If it is found and the result expands to more than
one address, the envelope sender address is changed to _o_w_n_e_r_-_n_a_m_e.
After aliasing has been done, local and valid recipients who have a
``.forward'' file in their home directory have messages forwarded to
the list of users defined in that file.
This is only the raw data file; the actual aliasing information is
placed into a binary format in the file /etc/mail/aliases.db using the
program newaliases(1). A newaliases command should be executed each
time the aliases file is changed for the change to take effect.
SSEEEE AALLSSOO
newaliases(1), dbm(3), dbopen(3), db_open(3), sendmail(8)
_S_E_N_D_M_A_I_L _I_n_s_t_a_l_l_a_t_i_o_n _a_n_d _O_p_e_r_a_t_i_o_n _G_u_i_d_e_.
_S_E_N_D_M_A_I_L _A_n _I_n_t_e_r_n_e_t_w_o_r_k _M_a_i_l _R_o_u_t_e_r_.
BBUUGGSS
If you have compiled sendmail with DBM support instead of NEWDB, you
may have encountered problems in dbm(3) restricting a single alias to
about 1000 bytes of information. You can get longer aliases by
``chaining''; that is, make the last name in the alias be a dummy name
which is a continuation alias.
HHIISSTTOORRYY
The aalliiaasseess file format appeared in 4.0BSD.
$Date: 2004/07/12 05:39:21 $ ALIASES(5)
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