NAME

       aliases - aliases file for smtpd

SYNOPSIS

       aliases

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page describes the format of the aliases file, as used by smtpd(8).  An alias
       in its simplest form is used to assign an arbitrary name to an email address, or a group
       of email addresses.  This provides a convenient way to send mail.  For example an alias
       could refer to all users of a group: email to that alias would be sent to all members of
       the group.  Much more complex aliases can be defined however: an alias can refer to other
       aliases, be used to send mail to a file instead of another person, or to execute various
       commands.

       Within the file, Ql # is a comment delimiter; anything placed after it is discarded.  The
       file consists of key/value mappings of the form: -filled -offset indent key: value1,
       value2, value3, ...

       key is always folded to lowercase before alias lookups to ensure that there can be no
       ambiguity.  The key is expanded to the corresponding values, which consist of one or more
       of the following:

            user   A user on the host machine.  The user must have a valid entry in the passwd(5)
                   database file.

            /path/to/file
                   Append messages to file, specified by its absolute pathname.

            | command
                   Pipe the message to command on its standard input.  The command is run under
                   the privileges of the daemon's unprivileged account.

            : include: /path/to/file
                   Include any definitions in file as alias entries.  The format of the file is
                   identical to this one.

            user-part@domain-part
                   An email address in RFC 5322 format (see mailaddr(7)).  If an address
                   extension is appended to the user-part, it is stripped so that an address such
                   as user+ext@example.com will only use the part that precedes Sq + as a key.

            error: code message
                   A status code and message to return.  The code must be 3 digits, starting 4XX
                   (TempFail) or 5XX (PermFail).  The message must be present and can be freely
                   chosen.

            maildir:/path
                   Deliver messages to Maildir at the path.

FILES

            /etc/aliases
                   Default aliases file.

SEE ALSO

       smtpd.conf(5), makemap(8), newaliases(8), smtpd(8)

HISTORY

       The aliases file format appeared in Bx 4.0.

                                   $Mdocdate: February 4 2014 $                        ALIASES(5)