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.

       If an alias is found for name, sendmail then checks for an
       alias  for  owner-name.   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 owner-name.

       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: 2004/07/12 05:39:21 $        ALIASES(5)