NAME

       makealiases - Create an alias database

SYNOPSIS

       makealiases [-protocol=protocol] [-alias=filename] [-src=pathname] [-tmp=filename] [-chk] [-dump]
                   [module]

DESCRIPTION

       The Courier mail server's /etc/courier/aliases.dat file is a unified implementation of sendmail-style
       address aliasing, qmail-style virtual domains, plus several Courier mail server-style enhancements.

       The term aliasing refers to substituting one or more addresses for another address. A one-to-one
       substitution results in the Courier mail server accepting mail for one address, and delivering the mail
       to another address. A one-to-many substitution results in the Courier mail server accepting mail for one
       address, and delivering a separate copy of the message to every address defined by the alias.

       /etc/courier/aliases.dat is a binary database file.  makealiases creates the binary database file by
       reading the aliases from plain text files, and makealiases creates /etc/courier/aliases.dat by default.

       makealiases creates /etc/courier/aliases.dat from one or more source files, which are plain text files
       that may be created by any text editor. The format of those source files is defined below. By default,
       makealiases obtains the source text from /etc/courier/aliases. If this is a text file, it is used
       verbatim. If this is a directory (the Courier mail server creates it as a directory by default), all the
       non-hidden files in this directory are concatenated together.

OPTIONS

       -alias=filename
           Create filename, instead of /etc/courier/aliases.dat.

       -chk
           Try to search for bad addresses used in the aliases.dat file. This option takes some time to
           complete. It does not create an aliases.dat file, but instead tries to check every address specified
           by the source text file. Why is this necessary? That's because non-delivery reports will not be sent
           to the sender for failures in delivering mail to an aliased address. This is by design. the Courier
           mail server considers aliases to be private mailing lists. Because non-delivery notices are not sent,
           bad addresses will not be immediately detected.

               Note
               The -chk option is really effective for addresses which are local, because there is no real way
               to determine if a remote mail address is valid.

       -dump
           Do not create aliases.dat, instead display the contents of the alias database, in plain text form.
           The contents will be the combined contents of all the source files, with all addresses converted to
           canonical format, with duplicates removed and sub-aliases expanded.

       -src=pathname
           Use pathname instead of /etc/courier/aliases as the source file.  pathname can also refer to a
           directory. This concatenates every non-hidden file in the directory.

       -tmp=filename
           Use filename as a temporary file, instead of /etc/courier/aliases.tmp.  makealiases requires a
           temporary file for its own purposes, which is automatically removed when done. This temporary file
           MUST reside on the same filesystem as aliases.dat. If the -alias option specifies a file on a
           different filesystem, use this option to specify where to temporary place a file in the same
           filesystem. Because makealiases always uses the same name for a temporary file you cannot run more
           than one makealiases process at the same time.

       -protocol=protocol
           Use an alias list that's private to messages coming from protocol. See below.

       The optional module specifies the module whose rewriting rules are used to convert E-mail addresses into
       a canonical form. If not specified, the local module's address rewriting rules will be used.

PROTOCOL ALIASES

       Addresses in /etc/courier/aliases.dat will be checked in every message. Use the -protocol option to
       create aliases that will be checked only for message that are received via a specific protocol, such as
       ESMTP, UUCP, or locally-generated mail. This allows you, for example, to create an alias such as
       "everyone", which is only avaliable to locally generated mail, and does not work for mail received via
       ESMTP. The argument to the -protocol option is one of: esmtp, uucp, or local.

       Protocol-specific alias files are /etc/courier/aliases-protocol.dat, where "protocol" is the specific
       protocol, such as "local", "esmtp", or "uucp", and the source file read by makealiases would be
       /etc/courier/aliases-protocol. If the -protocol option is specified, makealiases will access these files
       instead of /etc/courier/aliases.dat and /etc/courier/aliases.

ALIAS SPECIFICATIONS

       The sources file used to create the binary aliases.dat database are plain text files that may be created
       using any editor.

       Each alias specification takes the following form:

           alias: address1, address2, ...

       Mail received by the Courier mail server addressed to alias will be delivered to the list of addresses
       specified. The list of addresses may be split across multiple lines, if the second and subsequent line
       starts with a space character.

       Lines starting with the # character are ignored, they are comments.

       alias is not restricted to be a local address. It may be any valid RFC 2822[1] address. All addresses do
       not necessary have to be in a canonical form.

           alias: :include:/absolute/pathname

       This notation reads the list of addresses from another file, /absolute/pathname. This file should contain
       one address per line (comma separated addresses on the same line will also work).

           Note

           If alias refers to a local, existing, account, this account will never get any mail. Any mail with
           the account listed as recipient will be redirected to all the addresses specified for that alias. To
           have a copy of the mail delivered to the account, define it as one of the addresses in the alias
           itself. For example:

               larry: larry, moe, curly, shemp

           Larry will still receive his mail, but copies will will also be sent to Moe, Curly, and Shemp. If
           Larry wasn't specified in the alias, he would never get any mail, it will all be forwarded to Moe,
           Curly, and Shemp.

DUPLICATE ADDRESSES

       Alias definitions may refer to other alias definitions, and makealiases automatically incorporates
       addresses from other aliases. If the same address is listed in multiple aliases, and two or more of them
       are specified as recipients of the same message, only one copy of the message will be delivered to the
       address.

VIRTUAL DOMAINS

       The following special syntax implements a virtual domain. A virtual domain redirects all mail for an
       entire domain to one user:

           @domain: user

       This special entry results in any recipient address of the form foo@domain to be rewritten as
       user-foo@me, where me is the hostname of the machine, which we expect to be a local domain.

       The following examples use the alias entry "@example.com: john", and "domain.com" is in the control/me
       file. The address "postmaster@example.com" becomes "john-postmaster@domain.com", and
       "sales-info@example.com" becomes "john-sales-info@domain.com".

       The intended behavior is to use an actual account named john. As a result of the virtual domain address
       rewriting, delivery instructions for postmaster@example.com can now be specified by john's
       $HOME/.courier-postmaster file, and delivery instructions for sales-info@example.com may be specified by
       $HOME/.courier-sales-info.  john's $HOME/.courier-default may be used to specify delivery instructions
       for any other address in the example.com domain, which does not have an explicit .courier file.

       If the alias entry was "@example.com: john-example", the corresponding files in john's $HOME directory
       are .courier-example-postmaster, .courier-example-sales-info, and .courier-example-default. See dot-
       courier(5)[2] for more information on .courier files.

           Note

           Virtual domain rewriting is NOT recursive, unlike regular aliases. For example:

               tom: john@example.com
               @example.com: larry

           You should explicitly expand the alias out:

               tom: larry-john

PROGRAM OR MAILBOX ALIASES

       The following notation associates an address directly with a mailbox, or with a program:

           info: /var/shared/info

       Messages addressed to "info" will be delivered to the mailbox or maildir /var/shared/info. A full
       pathname must be specified.

           info: | /usr/local/shared/info

       Mail addressed to "info" will be delivered to the indicated program. The program receives each message on
       standard input.

       Program/mailbox delivery notation is primarily used to support legacy sendmail aliases entries. This is
       considered to be a legacy feature, and new installations should create a dot-courier(5)[2] file with the
       necessary delivery instructions. In fact, aliases for programs or mailboxes is not directly supported by
       the Courier mail server's aliasing mechanisms. It's implemented by having the makealiases script
       automatically create a .courier file, and point the alias address to it.

       See dot-courier(5)[2] for more information.

           Note

           Unlike sendmail, the Courier mail server delivers as user "courier" (group courier) when delivering
           to programs or mailboxes.

UUCP VIRTUAL DOMAINS

       The following notation allows mail addressed to a certain domain to be forwarded via uucp:

           @domain: uucp!bang!path!

       The trailing !  tells the Courier mail server not to append a dash, so user@domain gets rewritten as
       uucp!bang!path!user, and not uucp!bang!path-user, which is probably not what you want.

DELIVERY STATUS NOTIFICATIONS

       An alias with only one address does not affect delivery status notification attributes of an E-mail
       message.

       An alias with multiple addresses is treated like a private mailing list, as defined by RFC 1894[3]. If
       the message requests a successful delivery notification, the Courier mail server generates a delivery
       status notification for the successful delivery to the aliased address, and each alias recipient address
       will have DSNs set to NEVER.

BUGS

       This has nothing to do with the Courier mail server's support for a Qmail-style alias account.

       owner-foo feature of sendmail's aliasing is not supported.

       the Courier mail server normally tries to eliminate duplicate addresses listed as recipients for the same
       message. Some mail servers are not capable of delivering messages with multiple recipients, and will
       transmit a separate copy of the same message addressed to each recipient. The Courier mail server can't
       do anything in this case. Each copy of the same original text is considered an individual, separate,
       message.

       Duplicate elimination can fail in certain rare circumstances, involving exotic features of RFC 2822[1]
       concerning case sensitivity.

       "@example.com: jack, jill" is allowed, but strongly discouraged under the penalty of law.

       Because multiple-recipient aliases are treated like private mailing lists, failure DSNs are turned off,
       and a bad recipient address is hardly noticed by anyone.

       The makealiases command may execute while the Courier mail server is running, and any changes take effect
       immediately. However, only one instance of makealiases is permitted to run at the same time.

SEE ALSO

       esmtpd(8)[4].

AUTHOR

       Sam Varshavchik
           Author

NOTES

        1. RFC 2822
           http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc822.txt

        2. dot-courier(5)
           http://www.courier-mta.org/dot-courier.html

        3. RFC 1894
           http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1894.txt

        4. esmtpd(8)
           http://www.courier-mta.org/esmtpd.html

Courier Mail Server                                07/24/2017                                     MAKEALIASES(8)