Ubuntu Manpage: postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance

Provided by: postfix_2.11.0-1ubuntu1.2_amd64

NAME

       postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance

SYNOPSIS

       postalias [-Nfinoprsvw] [-c config_dir] [-d key] [-q key]
               [file_type:]file_name ...

DESCRIPTION

The postalias(1) command creates or queries one or more Postfix alias databases, or
updates an existing one. The input and output file formats are expected to be compatible
with Sendmail version 8, and are expected to be suitable for the use as NIS alias maps.

If the result files do not exist they will be created with the same group and other read
permissions as their source file.

While a database update is in progress, signal delivery is postponed, and an exclusive,
advisory, lock is placed on the entire database, in order to avoid surprises in spectator
processes.

The format of Postfix alias input files is described in aliases(5).

By default the lookup key is mapped to lowercase to make the lookups case insensitive; as
of Postfix 2.3 this case folding happens only with tables whose lookup keys are fixed-case
strings such as btree:, dbm: or hash:. With earlier versions, the lookup key is folded
even with tables where a lookup field can match both upper and lower case text, such as
regexp: and pcre:. This resulted in loss of information with $number substitutions.

Options:

-c config_dir
Read the main.cf configuration file in the named directory instead of the default
configuration directory.

-d key Search the specified maps for key and remove one entry per map. The exit status is
zero when the requested information was found.

If a key value of - is specified, the program reads key values from the standard
input stream. The exit status is zero when at least one of the requested keys was
found.

-f Do not fold the lookup key to lower case while creating or querying a table.

With Postfix version 2.3 and later, this option has no effect for regular
expression tables. There, case folding is controlled by appending a flag to a
pattern.

-i Incremental mode. Read entries from standard input and do not truncate an existing
database. By default, postalias(1) creates a new database from the entries in
file_name.

-N Include the terminating null character that terminates lookup keys and values. By
default, postalias(1) does whatever is the default for the host operating system.

-n Don't include the terminating null character that terminates lookup keys and
values. By default, postalias(1) does whatever is the default for the host
operating system.

-o Do not release root privileges when processing a non-root input file. By default,
postalias(1) drops root privileges and runs as the source file owner instead.

-p Do not inherit the file access permissions from the input file when creating a new
file. Instead, create a new file with default access permissions (mode 0644).

-q key Search the specified maps for key and write the first value found to the standard
output stream. The exit status is zero when the requested information was found.

If a key value of - is specified, the program reads key values from the standard
input stream and writes one line of key: value output for each key that was found.
The exit status is zero when at least one of the requested keys was found.

-r When updating a table, do not complain about attempts to update existing entries,
and make those updates anyway.

-s Retrieve all database elements, and write one line of key: value output for each
element. The elements are printed in database order, which is not necessarily the
same as the original input order. This feature is available in Postfix version 2.2
and later, and is not available for all database types.

-v Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple -v options make the
software increasingly verbose.

-w When updating a table, do not complain about attempts to update existing entries,
and ignore those attempts.

Arguments:

file_type
The database type. To find out what types are supported, use the "postconf -m"
command.

The postalias(1) command can query any supported file type, but it can create only
the following file types:

btree The output is a btree file, named file_name.db. This is available on
systems with support for db databases.

cdb The output is one file named file_name.cdb. This is available on systems
with support for cdb databases.

dbm The output consists of two files, named file_name.pag and file_name.dir.
This is available on systems with support for dbm databases.

hash The output is a hashed file, named file_name.db. This is available on
systems with support for db databases.

fail A table that reliably fails all requests. The lookup table name is used for
logging only. This table exists to simplify Postfix error tests.

sdbm The output consists of two files, named file_name.pag and file_name.dir.
This is available on systems with support for sdbm databases.

When no file_type is specified, the software uses the database type specified via
the default_database_type configuration parameter. The default value for this
parameter depends on the host environment.

file_name
The name of the alias database source file when creating a database.

DIAGNOSTICS

       Problems are logged to the standard error stream and to syslogd(8).  No output means  that
       no problems were detected. Duplicate entries are skipped and are flagged with a warning.

       postalias(1)  terminates  with  zero  exit status in case of success (including successful
       "postalias -q" lookup) and terminates with non-zero exit status in case of failure.

ENVIRONMENT

       MAIL_CONFIG
              Directory with Postfix configuration files.

       MAIL_VERBOSE
              Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes.

CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS

       The following main.cf parameters are especially relevant to this program.

       The text below 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".

       config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output)
              The default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf configuration files.

       berkeley_db_create_buffer_size (16777216)
              The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that create Berkeley DB  hash  or  btree
              tables.

       berkeley_db_read_buffer_size (131072)
              The  per-table  I/O  buffer  size  for programs that read Berkeley DB hash or btree
              tables.

       default_database_type (see 'postconf -d' output)
              The default database type for use in  newaliases(1),  postalias(1)  and  postmap(1)
              commands.

       syslog_facility (mail)
              The syslog facility of Postfix logging.

       syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output)
              The  mail  system  name that is prepended to the process name in syslog records, so
              that "smtpd" becomes, for example, "postfix/smtpd".

STANDARDS

       RFC 822 (ARPA Internet Text Messages)

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

                                                                                     POSTALIAS(1)