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ALIASES(5)                    File Formats Manual                   ALIASES(5)

NAME
       aliases - Postfix local alias database format

SYNOPSIS
       newaliases

DESCRIPTION
       The  aliases(5) table provides a system-wide mechanism to redirect mail
       for local recipients. The redirections are processed by the Postfix lo-
       cal(8) delivery agent.

       Normally,  the aliases(5) table is specified as a text file that serves
       as input to the postalias(1) command. The result, an  indexed  file  in
       dbm  or  db format, is used for fast lookup by the mail system. Execute
       the command newaliases in order  to  rebuild  the  indexed  file  after
       changing the Postfix alias database.

       When  the  table  is provided via other means such as NIS, LDAP or SQL,
       the same lookups are done as for ordinary indexed files.

       Alternatively, the table can be provided as  a  regular-expression  map
       where  patterns  are  given  as  regular expressions. In this case, the
       lookups are done in a slightly different way as described  below  under
       "REGULAR EXPRESSION TABLES".

       Users  can  control  delivery  of their own mail by setting up .forward
       files in their home directory.  Lines in per-user .forward  files  have
       the same syntax as the right-hand side of aliases(5) entries.

       The format of the alias database input file is as follows:

       o      An alias definition has the form

                   name: value1, value2, ...

       o      Empty  lines and whitespace-only lines are ignored, as are lines
              whose first non-whitespace character is a `#'.

       o      A logical line starts with  non-whitespace  text.  A  line  that
              starts with whitespace continues a logical line.

       The  name  is a local address (no domain part).  Use double quotes when
       the name contains any special characters such as whitespace, `#',  `:',
       or  `@'.  The  name  is  folded to lowercase, in order to make database
       lookups case insensitive.

       In addition, when an alias exists for owner-name,  this  will  override
       the  envelope sender address, so that delivery diagnostics are directed
       to owner-name, instead of the originator of the message  (for  details,
       see  owner_request_special,  expand_owner_alias and reset_owner_alias).
       This is typically used to direct delivery errors to the maintainer of a
       mailing list, who is in a better position to deal with mailing list de-
       livery problems than the originator of the undelivered mail.

       The value contains one or more of the following:

       address
              Mail is forwarded to address, which is compatible with  the  RFC
              822 standard.

       /file/name
              Mail  is appended to /file/name. See local(8) for details of de-
              livery to file.  Delivery is not limited to regular files.   For
              example, to dispose of unwanted mail, deflect it to /dev/null.

       |command
              Mail  is piped into command. Commands that contain special char-
              acters, such as whitespace, should be  enclosed  between  double
              quotes. See local(8) for details of delivery to command.

              When  the  command  fails, a limited amount of command output is
              mailed back to the sender.  The file /usr/include/sysexits.h de-
              fines  the  expected  exit status codes. For example, use "|exit
              67" to simulate a "user unknown" error, and "|exit 0" to  imple-
              ment an expensive black hole.

       :include:/file/name
              Mail  is  sent  to  the  destinations  listed in the named file.
              Lines in :include: files have the same syntax as the  right-hand
              side of alias entries.

              A  destination  can be any destination that is described in this
              manual page. However, delivery to "|command" and  /file/name  is
              disallowed  by  default.  To enable, edit the allow_mail_to_com-
              mands and allow_mail_to_files configuration parameters.

ADDRESS EXTENSION
       When alias database search fails, and the recipient localpart  contains
       the  optional  recipient  delimiter (e.g., user+foo), the search is re-
       peated for the unextended address (e.g., user).

       The propagate_unmatched_extensions parameter controls  whether  an  un-
       matched  address  extension (+foo) is propagated to the result of table
       lookup.

CASE FOLDING
       The local(8) delivery agent always folds the search string to lowercase
       before database lookup.

REGULAR EXPRESSION TABLES
       This  section  describes how the table lookups change when the table is
       given in the form of regular expressions. For a description of  regular
       expression  lookup  table syntax, see regexp_table(5) or pcre_table(5).
       NOTE: these formats do not use ":" at the end of a pattern.

       Each regular expression is applied to the entire search string. Thus, a
       search string user+foo is not broken up into user and foo.

       Regular expressions are applied in the order as specified in the table,
       until a regular expression is found that matches the search string.

       Lookup results are the same as with indexed file lookups.  For security
       reasons there is no support for $1, $2 etc. substring interpolation.

SECURITY
       The  local(8)  delivery agent disallows regular expression substitution
       of $1 etc. in alias_maps, because that would open a security hole.

       The local(8) delivery agent will silently ignore requests  to  use  the
       proxymap(8)  server  within  alias_maps. Instead it will open the table
       directly.  Before Postfix version 2.2, the local(8) delivery agent will
       terminate with a fatal error.

CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
       The following main.cf parameters are especially relevant.  The text be-
       low provides only a parameter summary. See postconf(5) for more details
       including examples.

       alias_database (see 'postconf -d' output)
              The  alias databases for local(8) delivery that are updated with
              "newaliases" or with "sendmail -bi".

       alias_maps (see 'postconf -d' output)
              The alias databases that are used for local(8) delivery.

       allow_mail_to_commands (alias, forward)
              Restrict local(8) mail delivery to external commands.

       allow_mail_to_files (alias, forward)
              Restrict local(8) mail delivery to external files.

       expand_owner_alias (no)
              When  delivering  to  an   alias   "aliasname"   that   has   an
              "owner-aliasname"  companion  alias, set the envelope sender ad-
              dress to the expansion of the "owner-aliasname" alias.

       propagate_unmatched_extensions (canonical, virtual)
              What address lookup tables copy an address  extension  from  the
              lookup key to the lookup result.

       owner_request_special (yes)
              Enable  special  treatment  for  owner-listname  entries  in the
              aliases(5) file, and don't split owner-listname and listname-re-
              quest  address localparts when the recipient_delimiter is set to
              "-".

       recipient_delimiter (empty)
              The set of characters that can separate a user name from its ex-
              tension  (example:  user+foo),  or a .forward file name from its
              extension (example: .forward+foo).

       Available in Postfix version 2.3 and later:

       frozen_delivered_to (yes)
              Update the local(8) delivery agent's idea of  the  Delivered-To:
              address  (see  prepend_delivered_header) only once, at the start
              of a delivery attempt; do not update the  Delivered-To:  address
              while expanding aliases or .forward files.

STANDARDS
       RFC 822 (ARPA Internet Text Messages)

SEE ALSO
       local(8), local delivery agent
       newaliases(1), create/update alias database
       postalias(1), create/update alias database
       postconf(5), configuration parameters

README FILES
       Use  "postconf readme_directory" or "postconf html_directory" to locate
       this information.
       DATABASE_README, Postfix lookup table overview

LICENSE
       The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software.

AUTHOR(S)
       Wietse Venema
       IBM T.J. Watson Research
       P.O. Box 704
       Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA

       Wietse Venema
       Google, Inc.
       111 8th Avenue
       New York, NY 10011, USA

                                                                    ALIASES(5)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ADDRESS EXTENSION | CASE FOLDING | REGULAR EXPRESSION TABLES | SECURITY | CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS | STANDARDS | SEE ALSO | README FILES | LICENSE | AUTHOR(S)