1aliases(4) File Formats aliases(4)
2
6 aliases, addresses, forward - addresses and aliases for sendmail
7
9 /etc/mail/aliases
10 /etc/mail/aliases.db
13 /etc/mail/aliases.dir
16 /etc/mail/aliases.pag
19 ~/.forward
22
25 These files contain mail addresses or aliases, recognized by send‐
26 mail(1M) for the local host:
27 /etc/passwd
29 Mail addresses (usernames) of local users.
31 /etc/mail/aliases
34 Aliases for the local host, in ASCII format. Root can edit this
36 file to add, update, or delete local mail aliases.
37 /etc/mail/aliases.{dir , pag}
40 The aliasing information from /etc/mail/aliases, in binary ndbm(3C)
42 format for use by sendmail(1M). The program newaliases(1M) main‐
43 tains these files.
44 /etc/mail/aliases.db
47 The aliasing information from /etc/mail/aliases, in binary, Berke‐
49 ley DataBase format for use by sendmail(1M). The program maintains
50 these files.
51 Depending on the configuration of the AliasFile option in
53 /etc/mail/sendmail.cf, either the single file aliases.db or the
54 pair of files aliases.{dir, pag} is generated by newaliases(1M). As
55 shipped with Solaris, sendmail(1M) supports both formats. If nei‐
56 ther is specified, the Berkeley DataBase format which generates the
57 single .db file is used.
58 ~/.forward
61 Addresses to which a user's mail is forwarded (see Automatic For‐
63 warding).
64 In addition, the NIS name services aliases map mail.aliases, and the
68 NIS+ mail_aliases table, both contain addresses and aliases available
69 for use across the network.
70 Addresses
72 As distributed, sendmail(1M) supports the following types of addresses:
73 Local Usernames
75 username
76 Each local username is listed in the local host's /etc/passwd file.
80 Local Filenames
82 pathname
83 Messages addressed to the absolute pathname of a file are appended to
87 that file.
88 Commands
90 |command
91 If the first character of the address is a vertical bar (|), send‐
95 mail(1M) pipes the message to the standard input of the command the bar
96 precedes.
97 Internet-standard Addresses
99 username@domain
100 If domain does not contain any `.' (dots), then it is interpreted as
104 the name of a host in the current domain. Otherwise, the message is
105 passed to a mailhost that determines how to get to the specified
106 domain. Domains are divided into subdomains separated by dots, with the
107 top-level domain on the right.
108 For example, the full address of John Smith could be:
111 js@jsmachine.Podunk-U.EDU
113 if he uses the machine named jsmachine at Podunk University.
117 uucp Addresses
119 ... [host!] host!username
120 These are sometimes mistakenly referred to as ``Usenet'' addresses.
124 uucp(1C) provides links to numerous sites throughout the world for the
125 remote copying of files.
126 Other site-specific forms of addressing can be added by customizing the
129 sendmail.cf configuration file. See sendmail(1M) for details. Standard
130 addresses are recommended.
131 Aliases
133 Local Aliases
134 /etc/mail/aliases is formatted as a series of lines of the form
135 aliasname:address[, address]
137 aliasname is the name of the alias or alias group, and address is the
141 address of a recipient in the group. Aliases can be nested. That is, an
142 address can be the name of another alias group. Because of the way
143 sendmail(1M) performs mapping from upper-case to lower-case, an address
144 that is the name of another alias group must not contain any upper-case
145 letters.
146 Lines beginning with white space are treated as continuation lines for
149 the preceding alias. Lines beginning with # are comments.
150 Special Aliases
152 An alias of the form:
153 owner-aliasname : address
155 sendmail directs error-messages resulting from mail to aliasname to
159 address, instead of back to the person who sent the message. sendmail
160 rewrites the SMTP envelope sender to match this, so owner-aliasname
161 should always point to alias-request, and alias-request should point to
162 the owner's actual address:
163 owner-aliasname: aliasname-request
165 aliasname-request address
166 An alias of the form:
170 aliasname: :include:pathname
172 with colons as shown, adds the recipients listed in the file pathname
176 to the aliasname alias. This allows a private list to be maintained
177 separately from the aliases file.
178 NIS and NIS+ Domain Aliases
180 The aliases file on the master NIS server is used for the mail.aliases
181 NIS map, which can be made available to every NIS client. The
182 mail_aliases table serves the same purpose on a NIS+ server. Thus, the
183 /etc/mail/aliases* files on the various hosts in a network will one day
184 be obsolete. Domain-wide aliases should ultimately be resolved into
185 usernames on specific hosts. For example, if the following were in the
186 domain-wide alias file:
187 jsmith:js@jsmachine
189 then any NIS or NIS+ client could just mail to jsmith and not have to
193 remember the machine and username for John Smith.
194 If a NIS or NIS+ alias does not resolve to an address with a specific
197 host, then the name of the NIS or NIS+ domain is used. There should be
198 an alias of the domain name for a host in this case.
199 For example, the alias:
202 jsmith:root
204 sends mail on a NIS or NIS+ client to root@podunk-u if the name of the
208 NIS or NIS+ domain is podunk-u.
209 Automatic Forwarding
211 When an alias (or address) is resolved to the name of a user on the
212 local host, sendmail(1M) checks for a ~/.forward file, owned by the
213 intended recipient, in that user's home directory, and with universal
214 read access. This file can contain one or more addresses or aliases as
215 described above, each of which is sent a copy of the user's mail.
216 Care must be taken to avoid creating addressing loops in the ~/.forward
219 file. When forwarding mail between machines, be sure that the destina‐
220 tion machine does not return the mail to the sender through the opera‐
221 tion of any NIS aliases. Otherwise, copies of the message may "bounce."
222 Usually, the solution is to change the NIS alias to direct mail to the
223 proper destination.
224 A backslash before a username inhibits further aliasing. For instance,
227 to invoke the vacation program, user js creates a ~/.forward file that
228 contains the line:
229 \js, "|/usr/ucb/vacation js"
231 so that one copy of the message is sent to the user, and another is
235 piped into the vacation program.
236 The ~/.forward file can be used to specify special "per user" exten‐
239 sions by creating a .forward+extension file in the home directory. For
240 example, with an address like jsmith+jerry@jsmachine, the sendmail(1M)
241 utility recognizes everything before the "+" as the actual username
242 (jsmith) and everything after it, up to the "@" symbol, as the exten‐
243 sion (jerry) which is passed to the mail delivery agent for local use.
244 The default value of the ForwardPath processing option in sendmail(1M)
247 is:
248 O ForwardPath=$z/.forward.$w+$h:$z/.forward+$h:$z/.forward.$w:$z \
250 /.forward
251 where $z is the macro for the user's home directory, $w is the macro
255 for the local machine name and $h is the extension. For example, for
256 mail using the address, jsmith+jerry@jsmachine, the sendmail(1M) util‐
257 ity checks each of the four following file names, in the order given,
258 to see if it exists and if it has "safe" permissions, that is, that
259 neither the file nor any of its parent directories are group- or world-
260 writable:
261 ~jsmith/.forward.jsmachine+jerry
263 ~jsmith/.forward+jerry
264 ~jsmith/.forward.jsmachine
265 ~jsmith/.forward
266 The first file that meets the conditions is used to forward the mail,
270 that is, all the entries in that file receive a copy of the mail. The
271 search is then stopped.
272
274 /etc/passwd Password file
275 /etc/nsswitch.conf Name service switch configuration file
278 /etc/mail/aliases Mail aliases file (ascii)
281 /etc/mail/aliases.db Database of mail aliases (binary)
284 /etc/mail/aliases.dir Database of mail aliases (binary)
287 /etc/mail/aliases.pag Database of mail aliases (binary)
290 /etc/mail/sendmail.cf sendmail configuration file
293 ~/.forward Forwarding information file
296
299 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
300 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
305 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
306 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
307 │Availability │SUNWsndmr │
308 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
309
311 passwd(1), uucp(1C), vacation(1), newaliases(1M), sendmail(1M),
312 ndbm(3C), getusershell(3C), passwd(4), shells(4), attributes(5)
313
315 Because of restrictions in ndbm(3C), a single alias cannot contain more
316 than about 1000 characters (if this format is used). The Berkeley Data‐
317 Base format does not have any such restriction. Nested aliases can be
318 used to circumvent this limit.
319 For aliases which result in piping to a program or concatenating a
322 file, the shell of the controlling user must be allowed. Which shells
323 are and are not allowed are determined by getusershell(3C).
324SunOS 5.11 8 May 2006 aliases(4)