1POSTALIAS(1) General Commands Manual POSTALIAS(1)
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6 postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance
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9 postalias [-Nfinoprsuvw] [-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 ex‐
16 pected to be suitable for 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 in‐
39 stead 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 de‐
74 fault 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 Note: this performs a single query with the key as specified,
81 and does not make iterative queries with substrings of the key
82 as described in the aliases(5) manual page.
83 If a key value of - is specified, the program reads key values
85 from the standard input stream and writes one line of key: value
86 output for each key that was found. The exit status is zero when
87 at least one of the requested keys was found.
88 -r When updating a table, do not complain about attempts to update
90 existing entries, and make those updates anyway.
91 -s Retrieve all database elements, and write one line of key: value
93 output for each element. The elements are printed in database
94 order, which is not necessarily the same as the original input
95 order. This feature is available in Postfix version 2.2 and
96 later, and is not available for all database types.
97 -u Disable UTF-8 support. UTF-8 support is enabled by default when
99 "smtputf8_enable = yes". It requires that keys and values are
100 valid UTF-8 strings.
101 -v Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple -v op‐
103 tions make the software increasingly verbose.
104 -w When updating a table, do not complain about attempts to update
106 existing entries, and ignore those attempts.
107 Arguments:
109 file_type
111 The database type. To find out what types are supported, use the
112 "postconf -m" command.
113 The postalias(1) command can query any supported file type, but
115 it can create only the following file types:
116 btree The output is a btree file, named file_name.db. This is
118 available on systems with support for db databases.
119 cdb The output is one file named file_name.cdb. This is
121 available on systems with support for cdb databases.
122 dbm The output consists of two files, named file_name.pag and
124 file_name.dir. This is available on systems with support
125 for dbm databases.
126 fail A table that reliably fails all requests. The lookup ta‐
128 ble name is used for logging only. This table exists to
129 simplify Postfix error tests.
130 hash The output is a hashed file, named file_name.db. This is
132 available on systems with support for db databases.
133 lmdb The output is a btree-based file, named file_name.lmdb.
135 lmdb supports concurrent writes and reads from different
136 processes, unlike other supported file-based tables.
137 This is available on systems with support for lmdb data‐
138 bases.
139 sdbm The output consists of two files, named file_name.pag and
141 file_name.dir. This is available on systems with support
142 for sdbm databases.
143 When no file_type is specified, the software uses the database
145 type specified via the default_database_type configuration pa‐
146 rameter. The default value for this parameter depends on the
147 host environment.
148 file_name
150 The name of the alias database source file when creating a data‐
151 base.
152
154 Problems are logged to the standard error stream and to syslogd(8) or
155 postlogd(8). No output means that no problems were detected. Duplicate
156 entries are skipped and are flagged with a warning.
157 postalias(1) terminates with zero exit status in case of success (in‐
159 cluding successful "postalias -q" lookup) and terminates with non-zero
160 exit status in case of failure.
161
163 MAIL_CONFIG
164 Directory with Postfix configuration files.
165 MAIL_VERBOSE
167 Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes.
168
170 The following main.cf parameters are especially relevant to this pro‐
171 gram.
172 The text below provides only a parameter summary. See postconf(5) for
174 more details including examples.
175 alias_database (see 'postconf -d' output)
177 The alias databases for local(8) delivery that are updated with
178 "newaliases" or with "sendmail -bi".
179 config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output)
181 The default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf con‐
182 figuration files.
183 berkeley_db_create_buffer_size (16777216)
185 The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that create Berkeley
186 DB hash or btree tables.
187 berkeley_db_read_buffer_size (131072)
189 The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that read Berkeley DB
190 hash or btree tables.
191 default_database_type (see 'postconf -d' output)
193 The default database type for use in newaliases(1), postalias(1)
194 and postmap(1) commands.
195 import_environment (see 'postconf -d' output)
197 The list of environment variables that a privileged Postfix
198 process will import from a non-Postfix parent process, or
199 name=value environment overrides.
200 smtputf8_enable (yes)
202 Enable preliminary SMTPUTF8 support for the protocols described
203 in RFC 6531, RFC 6532, and RFC 6533.
204 syslog_facility (mail)
206 The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
207 syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output)
209 A prefix that is prepended to the process name in syslog
210 records, so that, for example, "smtpd" becomes "prefix/smtpd".
211 Available in Postfix 2.11 and later:
213 lmdb_map_size (16777216)
215 The initial OpenLDAP LMDB database size limit in bytes.
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218 RFC 822 (ARPA Internet Text Messages)
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221 aliases(5), format of alias database input file.
222 local(8), Postfix local delivery agent.
223 postconf(1), supported database types
224 postconf(5), configuration parameters
225 postmap(1), create/update/query lookup tables
226 newaliases(1), Sendmail compatibility interface.
227 postlogd(8), Postfix logging
228 syslogd(8), system logging
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231 Use "postconf readme_directory" or "postconf html_directory" to locate
232 this information.
233 DATABASE_README, Postfix lookup table overview
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236 The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software.
237
239 Wietse Venema
240 IBM T.J. Watson Research
241 P.O. Box 704
242 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
243 Wietse Venema
245 Google, Inc.
246 111 8th Avenue
247 New York, NY 10011, USA
248 POSTALIAS(1)