aliases(4)                          CLIX                          aliases(4)



  NAME

    aliases - Alias file for sendmail

  DESCRIPTION

    The /usr/lib/aliases file defines aliases used by sendmail.  Alias
    definitions in this file have one of the following formats:

    name: name1[, name2 ... ]
    name: :include: filename
    name: "|program"

    The first format above simply lists the addresses that should be aliased
    to the alias name.  The second format specifies a file that contains
    addresses listed one per line.  For example, the following alias would
    cause sendmail to read the /usr/local/poets.list file for a list of
    recipients:

    poets: :include:/usr/local/poets.list

    The third format specifies a program to which mail messages should be
    piped.  The double quotation marks are necessary to prevent sendmail from
    suppressing the blanks between arguments.  For example, the following
    alias would cause sendmail to pipe mail messages to stdin of the program
    called /usr/frank/mymailer:

    mymailer: "|/usr/frank/mymailer -a"

    Complete pathnames must be furnished in the second and third formats.

    Only local names may be aliased.  In other words, an alias name cannot
    contain a ! or @ character.  For example, the following would not have the
    desired effect:

    eric@mit-xx: eric@berkeley.EDU

    Aliases may be continued by starting any continuation lines with a space
    or tab.  Blank lines and lines beginning with a pound sign (#) are treated
    as comments.

    When sendmail is first installed on a host and when the aliases file is
    modified, newaliases should be invoked to rebuild the database and create
    the ndbm() files /usr/lib/aliases.dir and /usr/lib/aliases.pag.  The
    sendmail command reads these files to resolve aliases.  Reading these
    files instead of the aliases file itself improves performance.

    If the contents of the file in the second format or the program in the
    third format have been modified, newaliases does not need to be invoked.

    After aliasing is performed, local and valid recipients who have a



  2/94 - Intergraph Corporation                                              1

  aliases(4)                          CLIX                          aliases(4)



    .forward file in their home directory have messages forwarded to the list
    of users defined in that file.

    Because of restrictions in ndbm(), a single alias cannot contain more than
    1000 bytes of information.  Longer aliases may by implemented by chaining.
    Chaining involves making the last name in the alias a dummy name that is a
    continuation alias.

  RELATED INFORMATION

    Commands:  newaliases(1), sendmail(8)

    Functions:  ndbm(3)









































  2                                              Intergraph Corporation - 2/94