ALIASES(5)		      File Formats Manual		    ALIASES(5)



NAME
       aliases - aliases file for sendmail

SYNOPSIS
       aliases

DESCRIPTION
       This file describes user ID aliases used by sendmail.  The file resides
       in /etc 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
	      /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 standard 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 white space 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
       message will be sent to any person more than once.

       If  an  alias  is found for name, sendmail then checks for an alias for
       owner-name.  If it is found and the result of the lookup expands	 to  a
       single address, the envelope sender address of the message is rewritten
       to that address.	 If it is found and the result expands	to  more  than
       one address, the envelope sender address is changed to owner-name.

       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  pro-
       gram  newaliases(1).  A newaliases command should be executed each time
       the aliases file is changed for the change to take effect.

SEE ALSO
       newaliases(1), dbm(3), dbopen(3), db_open(3), sendmail(8)

       SENDMAIL Installation and Operation Guide.

       SENDMAIL An Internetwork Mail Router.

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 continuation alias.

HISTORY
       The aliases file format appeared in 4.0BSD.



			 $Date: 2004/07/12 05:39:21 $		    ALIASES(5)