NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     aliases - aliases file for	sendmail

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     aliases

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     This file describes user ID aliases used by /usr/sbin/sendmail. The file
     resides in	/etc and is formatted as a series of lines of the form

	   name: name_1, name2,	name_3,	. . .

     The name is the name to alias, and	the name_n are the aliases for that
     name.  Lines beginning with white space are continuation lines.  Lines
     beginning with `#'	are comments.

     Aliasing occurs only on local names.  Loops can not occur,	since no message
 will be sent to any person more than once.

     After aliasing has	been done, local and valid recipients who have a
     ``.forward'' file in their	home directory have messages forwarded to the
     list of users defined in that file.

     This is only the raw data file; the actual	aliasing information is	placed
     into a binary format in the file /etc/aliases.db using the	program
     newaliases(1).  A newaliases command should be executed each time the
     aliases file is changed for the change to take effect.

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     newaliases(1),  dbopen(3),	 dbm(3),  sendmail(8)

     SENDMAIL Installation and Operation Guide.

     SENDMAIL An Internetwork Mail Router.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

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

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     The aliases file format appeared in 4.0BSD.

4th Berkeley Distribution	 May 19, 1998				     1


4th Berkeley Distribution	 May 19, 1998				     1