ALIASES(5) COMMAND REFERENCE ALIASES(5)
NAME
aliases - aliases file for sendmail
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/aliases
DESCRIPTION
This file describes user id aliases used by
/usr/lib/sendmail. It is formatted as a series of lines of
the form
name: name1, name2, name3, . .
The colon separates that which is aliased (name) from its
aliases (name1,name2,name3,...). As shown above, comma-
separated arguments can appear in the file. Lines beginning
with spaces or tabs are continuation lines. Lines beginning
with '#' are comments.
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.
Arguments take four forms: loginname, loginname@host-id,
/filename, and :include: /filename. Loginname is the login
name of the recipient on the local machine.
Loginname@host-id is the login name and the network name of
the recipient's home machine. If the /filename form is
used, any mail sent to the name being aliased is also
appended to the named file. If the file does not exist, it
is created. If :include: /filename is used, /filename is
the only argument allowed. Recursive definitions cause
infinite recursion in sendmail. The name being aliased
should never be the recipient of the file since it's a dummy
name. Input is taken from the specified file until it ends.
Processing of the current file continues.
This is an ASCII file used to modify the aliases database;
the actual aliasing information is placed into a binary
format in the files /usr/lib/aliases.dir and
/usr/lib/aliases.pag using the command newaliases. These are
dbm(3d) files.
Newaliases is automatically run on the first attempt to send
mail after /usr/lib/aliases is changed and then the change
takes effect. To execute a newaliases command, enter:
ln /usr/lib/sendmail /etc/newaliases
or
/usr/lib/sendmail -bi
Printed 10/17/86 1
ALIASES(5) COMMAND REFERENCE ALIASES(5)
The person who maintains the list of aliases is known as the
owner. To establish an owner, enter:
owner-xxxx: yyyy
yyyy is the owner of the list and xxxx is the name of the
list. If an error occurs, the owner receives an error
message. If there is no owner and an error occurs, the
person sending the mail receives an error message.
EXAMPLES
An example of a simple alias is:
root: joe,sam,jane@central
Any mail addressed to root does not go to root, but rather
to joe, sam, and jane.
The recipient can also be a file, for example,
bug-list: /usr/adm/bugsave
Mail is written to the file.
You can also read aliases in from a file, for example,
sys-list: :include:/usr/adm/systemusers
Lines in the file are similar to lines in /usr/lib/alias.
Including aliases in a file is done, for example, when the
system administrator owns the mail list of aliases, but the
group list is owned by someone else.
If an error occurs on sending mail to a specified list, only
the owner of the list is notified of the error. In the
example below, eric is the owner and vax-advice is the name
of the list. Only eric receives the error message.
owner-vax-advice: eric
vax-advice: eric,jill,sam
Aliasing occurs only on local names. The following example
is not valid.
john@ucbvax: bill
Duplicates cannot occur, since no messages are sent to any
person more than once. For example, given the aliases
sys-issues: sam,robert
sys-bugs: sys-issues,sam,fred
Printed 10/17/86 2
ALIASES(5) COMMAND REFERENCE ALIASES(5)
"sam", "fred", and "robert" each receive one copy of mail
for sys-bugs.
CAVEATS
Because of restrictions in dbm(3d) a single alias cannot
contain more than 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.
SEE ALSO
newaliases(1), dbm(3d), sendmail(8mh).
Printed 10/17/86 3
%%index%%
na:72,71;
sy:143,176;
de:319,3074;3537,421;
ex:3958,1707;5809,83;
ca:5892,521;
%%index%%000000000112