NAME

aliases − aliases file for sendmail

SYNTAX

/usr/lib/aliases

DESCRIPTION

This file describes user ID aliases which are used /usr/lib/sendmail. It is formatted as a series of lines in the following form:

name: name_1, name2, name_3, . . .

The name is the name to alias, and the name_n are the aliases for that name.  Continuation Lines begin with white space.  Comment line begin with a number sign (#). 

You can only assign aliases to local names.  A loop is not allowed because a message cannot be sent to a person more than once. 

After an alias has been applied, local and valid recipients who have a .forward file in their home directory can have messages forwarded to the list of users defined in that file.

This is only the raw data file; the actual information pertaining to aliases is placed into binary format in the files /usr/lib/aliases.dir and /usr/lib/aliases.pag using the program newaliases(.). The newaliases command should be executed each time the aliases file changes.  This command allows the new changes to take effect.

RESTRICTIONS

Because of restrictions in dbm(,), a single alias cannot contain more than approximately 1000 bytes of information.  You can specify longer aliases by chaining; that is, use a dummy name for the last name in the alias which creates a continuation alias.

SEE  ALSO

newaliases(1), dbm(3x), sendmail(8)
"SENDMAIL Installation and Operation Guide", ULTRIX-32 Supplementary Documents, Vol. III: System Manager

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