


ALIASES(5)                                             ALIASES(5)


NAME
       aliases - aliases file for sendmail

SYNOPSIS
       aliases

DESCRIPTION
       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  name  is  the  name  to alias, and the addr_n are the
       aliases for that name.  addr_n can  be  another  alias,  a
       local  username,  a  local filename, a command, an include
       file, or an external address.

       Local Username
              username

              The username must be available via getpwnam(3).

       Local Filename
              /path/name

              Messages are appended to the file specified by  the
              full pathname (starting with a slash (/))

       Command
              |command

              A  command  starts  with  a  pipe  symbol  (|),  it
              receives messages via standard input.

       Include File
              :include: /path/name

              The aliases in pathname are added  to  the  aliases
              for name.

       E-Mail Address
              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.



                   $Date: 2002/03/12 18:00:28 $                 1





ALIASES(5)                                             ALIASES(5)


       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 infor-
       mation  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.

SEE ALSO
       newaliases(1), dbm(3), dbopen(3), db_open(3), sendmail(8)

       SENDMAIL Installation and Operation Guide.

       SENDMAIL An Internetwork Mail Router.

BUGS
       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 informa-
       tion.  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.

HISTORY
       The aliases file format appeared in 4.0BSD.





























                   $Date: 2002/03/12 18:00:28 $                 2


