ALIASES(5)                OpenBSD Programmer's Manual               ALIASES(5)

NAME
     aliases - aliases file for sendmail

SYNOPSIS
     aliases

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

           name: addr_1, addr_2, addr_3, . . .

     The name is the name to alias, and the addr_n are the aliases for that
     name.  addr_n can be another alias, a local username, a local filename, a
     command, an include file, or an external address.

     Local Username
       username

       The username must be available via getpwnam(3).

     Local Filename
       username /path/name

       Messages are appended to the file specified by the full pathname
       (starting with a slash (/))

     Command
       |command

       A command starts with a pipe symbol (|), it receives messages via stan-
       dard input.

     Include File
       :include: /path/name

       The aliases in pathname are added to the aliases for name.

     E-Mail Address
       user@domain

       An e-mail address in RFC 822 format.

     Lines beginning with whitespace are continuation lines.  Another way to
     continue lines is by placing a backslash directly before a newline.
     Lines beginning with `#' are comments.

     Aliasing occurs only on local names.  Loops can not occur, since no mes-
     sage 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/mail/aliases.db using the program
     newaliases(8). A newaliases command should be executed each time the
     aliases file is changed for the change to take effect.

SEE ALSO
     dbm(3), dbopen(3), newaliases(8), sendmail(8)

     Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide, No. 8, SMM.
     Sendmail - An Internetwork Mail Router, No. 9, SMM.

BUGS
     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 con-
     tinuation alias.

HISTORY
     The aliases file format appeared in 4.0BSD.

OpenBSD 3.0                    December 14, 2000                             2
