aliases.5 (2010 09)

a
aliases(5) aliases(5)
NAME
aliases - aliases file for sendmail
SYNOPSIS
/etc/mail/aliases
DESCRIPTION
The newaliases command (which is the same as
sendmail -bi; see sendmail (1M)) builds the send-
mail alias database from a text file. The default text file is
/etc/mail/aliases
. Local addresses
(local user names) are looked up in the alias database and expanded as necessary, unless the user name
is preceded by a backslash (
\). When the aliases file contains multiple entries for a given alias, only the
last entry is used. Except when the m
processing option (the send to me option) is set in the sendmail
command or in the configuration file,
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf
, the sender is not included in any
alias expansions. For example, if
joe
sends a message to group, and the expansion of group includes
joe, the message is not delivered to
joe.
Each line of the alias text file must be of the form:
alias
: mailing-list
Mailing lists can be continued onto multiple lines. Each continuation line must begin with white space.
Lines beginning with # are comments.
A mailing-list is a comma-separated list of one or more of the following:
user-name Local user names occurring in alias expansions will themselves be looked
up in the alias database unless they are preceded by backslash (
\).
remote-address The remote address syntax understood by
sendmail is configured in
the sendmail configuration file, and typically includes the RFC-822-
style user@domain and the UUCP-style host !user.
filename This must be an absolute path name.
sendmail appends a message to
the file only if the directory in which it resides is readable and search-
able by all, and only if the file already exists, is not executable, and is
writable by all.
| command-line sendmail pipes the message as standard input to the specified com-
mand. If command-line contains blanks, it must be enclosed in quotation
marks ("). For example,
msgs: "|/usr/bin/msgs -s"
:include:filename sendmail reads filename for a list of recipient addresses and forwards
the message to each. For example, an alias such as:
poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list"
would read /usr/local/lib/poets.list for the list of addresses
making up the group.
If a file named
.forward exists in a user’s home directory and is owned by the user, sendmail
redirects mail for that user to the list of addresses in the .forward file.
An address in a
.forward or :include: file can be anything that can appear as a mailing-list in the
alias text file.
sendmail can run programs or write to files using .forward file. This is controlled by the
/etc/shells file. If the owner of the .forward file lacks a valid shell as listed in /etc/shells
file, the execution of such programs will be disallowed. The user can still execute such programs by plac-
ing the special string /SENDMAIL/ANY/SHELL/ in the /etc/shells file.
The alias database is examined before a recipient’s
.forward file is examined. After aliasing has been
done, local and valid recipients who have a .forward file in their home directory will have messages
forwarded to the list of users defined in that file.
Aliasing occurs only on local names. Loops can not occur, since no message will be sent to any person
more than once.
Aliases defined in
/etc/mail/aliases will NOT be expanded in headers from mailx (see mailx (1)),
but WILL be visible over networks and in headers from rmail (see mail(1)).
HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1