1ALIASES(5)                    File Formats Manual                   ALIASES(5)
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NAME

6       aliases - aliases file for sendmail
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SYNOPSIS

9       aliases
10

DESCRIPTION

12       This file describes user ID aliases used by sendmail.  The file resides
13       in /etc and is formatted as a series of lines of the form
14
15              name: addr_1, addr_2, addr_3, . . .
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17       The name is the name to alias, and the addr_n are the aliases for  that
18       name.  addr_n can be another alias, a local username, a local filename,
19       a command, an include file, or an external address.
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21       Local Username
22              username
23
24              The username must be available via getpwnam(3).
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26       Local Filename
27              /path/name
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29              Messages are appended to the file specified by the full pathname
30              (starting with a slash (/))
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32       Command
33              |command
34
35              A  command  starts  with a pipe symbol (|), it receives messages
36              via standard input.
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38       Include File
39              :include: /path/name
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41              The aliases in pathname are added to the aliases for name.
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43       E-Mail Address
44              user@domain
45
46              An e-mail address in RFC 822 format.
47
48       Lines beginning with white space are continuation lines.   Another  way
49       to  continue lines is by placing a backslash directly before a newline.
50       Lines beginning with # are comments.
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52       Aliasing occurs only on local names.  Loops can  not  occur,  since  no
53       message will be sent to any person more than once.
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55       If  an  alias  is found for name, sendmail then checks for an alias for
56       owner-name.  If it is found and the result of the lookup expands  to  a
57       single address, the envelope sender address of the message is rewritten
58       to that address.  If it is found and the result expands  to  more  than
59       one address, the envelope sender address is changed to owner-name.
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61       After  aliasing  has  been  done, local and valid recipients who have a
62       ``.forward'' file in their home directory have  messages  forwarded  to
63       the list of users defined in that file.
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65       This  is  only  the  raw  data file; the actual aliasing information is
66       placed into a binary format in the file /etc/aliases.db using the  pro‐
67       gram  newaliases(1).  A newaliases command should be executed each time
68       the aliases file is changed for the change to take effect.
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SEE ALSO

71       newaliases(1), dbm(3), dbopen(3), db_open(3), sendmail(8)
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73       SENDMAIL Installation and Operation Guide.
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75       SENDMAIL An Internetwork Mail Router.
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BUGS

78       If you have compiled sendmail with DBM support instead  of  NEWDB,  you
79       may  have  encountered problems in dbm(3) restricting a single alias to
80       about 1000 bytes  of  information.   You  can  get  longer  aliases  by
81       ``chaining'';  that is, make the last name in the alias be a dummy name
82       which is a continuation alias.
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HISTORY

85       The aliases file format appeared in 4.0BSD.
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89                         $Date: 2013-11-22 20:51:55 $               ALIASES(5)