ALIASES(5)                                              File Formats Manual                                              ALIASES(5)

NAME
       aliases - Postfix local alias database format

SYNOPSIS
       newaliases

DESCRIPTION
       The  aliases(5) table provides a system-wide mechanism to redirect mail for local recipients. The redirections are processed
       by the Postfix local(8) delivery agent.

       Normally, the aliases(5) table is specified as a text file that serves as input to the postalias(1) command. The result,  an
       indexed file in dbm or db format, is used for fast lookup by the mail system. Execute the command newaliases in order to re‐
       build the indexed file after changing the Postfix alias database.

       When the table is provided via other means such as NIS, LDAP or SQL, the same lookups  are  done  as  for  ordinary  indexed
       files.

       Alternatively,  the  table  can  be provided as a regular-expression map where patterns are given as regular expressions. In
       this case, the lookups are done in a slightly different way as described below under "REGULAR EXPRESSION TABLES".

       Users can control delivery of their own mail by setting up .forward files in their home directory.  Lines in per-user  .for‐
       ward files have the same syntax as the right-hand side of aliases(5) entries.

       The format of the alias database input file is as follows:

       •      An alias definition has the form

                   name: value1, value2, ...

       •      Empty lines and whitespace-only lines are ignored, as are lines whose first non-whitespace character is a `#'.

       •      A logical line starts with non-whitespace text. A line that starts with whitespace continues a logical line.

       The  name  is  a  local  address  (no domain part).  Use double quotes when the name contains any special characters such as
       whitespace, `#', `:', or `@'. The name is folded to lowercase, in order to make database lookups case insensitive.

       In addition, when an alias exists for owner-name, this will override the envelope sender address, so that delivery  diagnos‐
       tics  are  directed  to  owner-name,  instead  of the originator of the message (for details, see owner_request_special, ex‐
       pand_owner_alias and reset_owner_alias).  This is typically used to direct delivery errors to the maintainer  of  a  mailing
       list, who is in a better position to deal with mailing list delivery problems than the originator of the undelivered mail.

       The value contains one or more of the following:

       address
              Mail is forwarded to address, which is compatible with the RFC 822 standard.

       /file/name
              Mail  is  appended  to  /file/name. See local(8) for details of delivery to file.  Delivery is not limited to regular
              files.  For example, to dispose of unwanted mail, deflect it to /dev/null.

       |command
              Mail is piped into command. Commands that contain special characters, such as whitespace, should be enclosed  between
              double quotes. See local(8) for details of delivery to command.

              When  the  command fails, a limited amount of command output is mailed back to the sender.  The file /usr/include/sy‐
              sexits.h defines the expected exit status codes. For example, use "|exit 67" to simulate a "user unknown" error,  and
              "|exit 0" to implement an expensive black hole.

       :include:/file/name
              Mail  is  sent  to  the  destinations listed in the named file.  Lines in :include: files have the same syntax as the
              right-hand side of alias entries.

              A destination can be any destination that is described in this manual  page.  However,  delivery  to  "|command"  and
              /file/name is disallowed by default. To enable, edit the allow_mail_to_commands and allow_mail_to_files configuration
              parameters.

ADDRESS EXTENSION
       When alias database search fails, and the recipient localpart contains the optional recipient  delimiter  (e.g.,  user+foo),
       the search is repeated for the unextended address (e.g., user).

       The propagate_unmatched_extensions parameter controls whether an unmatched address extension (+foo) is propagated to the re‐
       sult of table lookup.

CASE FOLDING
       The local(8) delivery agent always folds the search string to lowercase before database lookup.

REGULAR EXPRESSION TABLES
       This section describes how the table lookups change when the table is given in the form of regular expressions.  For  a  de‐
       scription  of  regular  expression lookup table syntax, see regexp_table(5) or pcre_table(5). NOTE: these formats do not use
       ":" at the end of a pattern.

       Each regular expression is applied to the entire search string. Thus, a search string user+foo is not broken  up  into  user
       and foo.

       Regular expressions are applied in the order as specified in the table, until a regular expression is found that matches the
       search string.

       Lookup results are the same as with indexed file lookups.  For security reasons there is no support for  $1,  $2  etc.  sub‐
       string interpolation.

SECURITY
       The  local(8)  delivery  agent disallows regular expression substitution of $1 etc. in alias_maps, because that would open a
       security hole.

       The local(8) delivery agent will silently ignore requests to use the proxymap(8) server within alias_maps. Instead  it  will
       open the table directly.  Before Postfix version 2.2, the local(8) delivery agent will terminate with a fatal error.

CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
       The following main.cf parameters are especially relevant.  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".

       alias_maps (see 'postconf -d' output)
              The alias databases that are used for local(8) delivery.

       allow_mail_to_commands (alias, forward)
              Restrict local(8) mail delivery to external commands.

       allow_mail_to_files (alias, forward)
              Restrict local(8) mail delivery to external files.

       expand_owner_alias (no)
              When delivering to an alias "aliasname" that has an "owner-aliasname" companion alias, set the  envelope  sender  ad‐
              dress to the expansion of the "owner-aliasname" alias.

       propagate_unmatched_extensions (canonical, virtual)
              What address lookup tables copy an address extension from the lookup key to the lookup result.

       owner_request_special (yes)
              Enable  special treatment for owner-listname entries in the aliases(5) file, and don't split owner-listname and list‐
              name-request address localparts when the recipient_delimiter is set to "-".

       recipient_delimiter (empty)
              The set of characters that can separate a user name from its extension (example: user+foo), or a .forward  file  name
              from its extension (example: .forward+foo).

       Available in Postfix version 2.3 and later:

       frozen_delivered_to (yes)
              Update  the  local(8) delivery agent's idea of the Delivered-To: address (see prepend_delivered_header) only once, at
              the start of a delivery attempt; do not update the Delivered-To: address while expanding aliases or .forward files.

STANDARDS
       RFC 822 (ARPA Internet Text Messages)

SEE ALSO
       local(8), local delivery agent
       newaliases(1), create/update alias database
       postalias(1), create/update alias database
       postconf(5), configuration parameters

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

       Wietse Venema
       Google, Inc.
       111 8th Avenue
       New York, NY 10011, USA

                                                                                                                         ALIASES(5)