1POSTALIAS(1) General Commands Manual POSTALIAS(1)
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6 postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance
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9 postalias [-Nfinoprsvw] [-c config_dir] [-d key] [-q key]
10 [file_type:]file_name ...
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13 The postalias(1) command creates or queries one or more Postfix alias
14 databases, or updates an existing one. The input and output file for‐
15 mats are expected to be compatible with Sendmail version 8, and are
16 expected to be suitable for the use as NIS alias maps.
17 If the result files do not exist they will be created with the same
19 group and other read permissions as their source file.
20 While a database update is in progress, signal delivery is postponed,
22 and an exclusive, advisory, lock is placed on the entire database, in
23 order to avoid surprises in spectator processes.
24 The format of Postfix alias input files is described in aliases(5).
26 By default the lookup key is mapped to lowercase to make the lookups
28 case insensitive; as of Postfix 2.3 this case folding happens only with
29 tables whose lookup keys are fixed-case strings such as btree:, dbm: or
30 hash:. With earlier versions, the lookup key is folded even with tables
31 where a lookup field can match both upper and lower case text, such as
32 regexp: and pcre:. This resulted in loss of information with $number
33 substitutions.
34 Options:
36 -c config_dir
38 Read the main.cf configuration file in the named directory
39 instead of the default configuration directory.
40 -d key Search the specified maps for key and remove one entry per map.
42 The exit status is zero when the requested information was
43 found.
44 If a key value of - is specified, the program reads key values
46 from the standard input stream. The exit status is zero when at
47 least one of the requested keys was found.
48 -f Do not fold the lookup key to lower case while creating or
50 querying a table.
51 With Postfix version 2.3 and later, this option has no effect
53 for regular expression tables. There, case folding is controlled
54 by appending a flag to a pattern.
55 -i Incremental mode. Read entries from standard input and do not
57 truncate an existing database. By default, postalias(1) creates
58 a new database from the entries in file_name.
59 -N Include the terminating null character that terminates lookup
61 keys and values. By default, postalias(1) does whatever is the
62 default for the host operating system.
63 -n Don't include the terminating null character that terminates
65 lookup keys and values. By default, postalias(1) does whatever
66 is the default for the host operating system.
67 -o Do not release root privileges when processing a non-root input
69 file. By default, postalias(1) drops root privileges and runs as
70 the source file owner instead.
71 -p Do not inherit the file access permissions from the input file
73 when creating a new file. Instead, create a new file with
74 default access permissions (mode 0644).
75 -q key Search the specified maps for key and write the first value
77 found to the standard output stream. The exit status is zero
78 when the requested information was found.
79 If a key value of - is specified, the program reads key values
81 from the standard input stream and writes one line of key: value
82 output for each key that was found. The exit status is zero when
83 at least one of the requested keys was found.
84 -r When updating a table, do not complain about attempts to update
86 existing entries, and make those updates anyway.
87 -s Retrieve all database elements, and write one line of key: value
89 output for each element. The elements are printed in database
90 order, which is not necessarily the same as the original input
91 order. This feature is available in Postfix version 2.2 and
92 later, and is not available for all database types.
93 -v Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple -v
95 options make the software increasingly verbose.
96 -w When updating a table, do not complain about attempts to update
98 existing entries, and ignore those attempts.
99 Arguments:
101 file_type
103 The database type. To find out what types are supported, use the
104 "postconf -m" command.
105 The postalias(1) command can query any supported file type, but
107 it can create only the following file types:
108 btree The output is a btree file, named file_name.db. This is
110 available on systems with support for db databases.
111 cdb The output is one file named file_name.cdb. This is
113 available on systems with support for cdb databases.
114 dbm The output consists of two files, named file_name.pag and
116 file_name.dir. This is available on systems with support
117 for dbm databases.
118 hash The output is a hashed file, named file_name.db. This is
120 available on systems with support for db databases.
121 sdbm The output consists of two files, named file_name.pag and
123 file_name.dir. This is available on systems with support
124 for sdbm databases.
125 When no file_type is specified, the software uses the database
127 type specified via the default_database_type configuration
128 parameter. The default value for this parameter depends on the
129 host environment.
130 file_name
132 The name of the alias database source file when creating a data‐
133 base.
134
136 Problems are logged to the standard error stream and to syslogd(8). No
137 output means that no problems were detected. Duplicate entries are
138 skipped and are flagged with a warning.
139 postalias(1) terminates with zero exit status in case of success
141 (including successful "postalias -q" lookup) and terminates with non-
142 zero exit status in case of failure.
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145 MAIL_CONFIG
146 Directory with Postfix configuration files.
147 MAIL_VERBOSE
149 Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes.
150
152 The following main.cf parameters are especially relevant to this pro‐
153 gram.
154 The text below provides only a parameter summary. See postconf(5) for
156 more details including examples.
157 alias_database (see 'postconf -d' output)
159 The alias databases for local(8) delivery that are updated with
160 "newaliases" or with "sendmail -bi".
161 config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output)
163 The default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf con‐
164 figuration files.
165 berkeley_db_create_buffer_size (16777216)
167 The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that create Berkeley
168 DB hash or btree tables.
169 berkeley_db_read_buffer_size (131072)
171 The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that read Berkeley DB
172 hash or btree tables.
173 default_database_type (see 'postconf -d' output)
175 The default database type for use in newaliases(1), postalias(1)
176 and postmap(1) commands.
177 syslog_facility (mail)
179 The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
180 syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output)
182 The mail system name that is prepended to the process name in
183 syslog records, so that "smtpd" becomes, for example, "post‐
184 fix/smtpd".
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187 RFC 822 (ARPA Internet Text Messages)
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190 aliases(5), format of alias database input file.
191 local(8), Postfix local delivery agent.
192 postconf(1), supported database types
193 postconf(5), configuration parameters
194 postmap(1), create/update/query lookup tables
195 newaliases(1), Sendmail compatibility interface.
196 syslogd(8), system logging
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199 Use "postconf readme_directory" or "postconf html_directory" to locate
200 this information.
201 DATABASE_README, Postfix lookup table overview
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204 The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software.
205
207 Wietse Venema
208 IBM T.J. Watson Research
209 P.O. Box 704
210 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
211 POSTALIAS(1)