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  4. postalias(1)

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POSTALIAS(1) General Commands Manual POSTALIAS(1)

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:



  

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

  

  
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.

  

  

  
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.

  

  

  
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.

  

  
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.

  

  
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.

  

  
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.

  

  
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).

  

  
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.

  

  

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

  

  
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.

  

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

  

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




Arguments:



  

  
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:

  







  

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

  

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

  

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

  

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

  

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

  

  
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.





  

  
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





  

  
Directory with Postfix configuration files.

  

  
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.



  

  
The alias databases for local(8) delivery that are updated with
      "newaliases" or with "sendmail
    -bi".

  

  
The default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf configuration
      files.

  

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

  

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

  

  
The default database type for use in newaliases(1),
      postalias(1) and postmap(1) commands.

  

  
The syslog facility of Postfix logging.

  

  
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)






SEE ALSO


aliases(5), format of alias database input file.
local(8), Postfix local delivery agent.
postconf(1), supported database types
postconf(5), configuration parameters
postmap(1), create/update/query lookup tables
newaliases(1), Sendmail compatibility interface.
syslogd(8), system logging






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