SYNOPSIS

       newaliases

DESCRIPTION

       newaliases reads	a table	of sendmail-style forwarding instructions from
       /etc/aliases  and  converts  them  into	a   forwarding	 database   in
       /etc/aliases.cdb.   The forwarding database can be used by fastforward.

       For   safety,   newaliases   writes   the   forwarding	database    to
       /etc/aliases.tmp	 and  then moves /etc/aliases.tmp to /etc/aliases.cdb.
       If there	is a problem creating /etc/aliases.tmp,	 newaliases  complains
       and  leaves  /etc/aliases.cdb  alone.   Deliveries  can	continue using
       /etc/aliases.cdb	in the meantime.

       newaliases always creates /etc/aliases.cdb world-readable.

       newaliases makes	no attempt to protect against simultaneous updates  of
       /etc/aliases.cdb.

INSTRUCTION FORMAT

       newaliases imitates sendmail's handling of /etc/aliases.	 For example,

	  root:	alice, bill

       says that mail for root should be forwarded to alice and	bill.

       COMPATIBILITY  WARNING:	newaliases  does  not support file deliveries.
       You can use the	file  delivery	mechanism  described  in  dot-qmail(5)
       instead.

SIMPLE ALIASES

       The simplest type of forwarding instruction is a	line of	the form

	  alias: recip

       Any  message  sent  to alias will be forwarded to the recipient address
       recip.  Addresses are compared to alias without regard to case.

       Forwarding instructions are cumulative.	If recip is itself  an	alias,
       messages	 to alias will be forwarded the	same way as messages to	recip.
       For example, with the  following	 instructions,	messages  to  postmas-
       ter@heaven.af.mil or root@heaven.af.mil will be delivered to Bob:

	  postmaster@heaven.af.mil: bob@heaven.af.mil
	  root@heaven.af.mil: postmaster@heaven.af.mil

       COMPATIBILITY WARNING: With sendmail, entries in	/etc/aliases can over-
       ride  usernames.	  With	qmail,	 if   you   install   fastforward   in
       ~alias/.qmail-default, it will not see addresses	that are controlled by
       other users.  See qmail-getpw(8).  To change this, see  qmail-users(5).

       COMPATIBILITY  WARNING: Various versions	of sendmail do various strange
       hosts and virtual domains.

ADDRESS FORMATS

       Addresses in /etc/aliases are parsed the	same way as addresses  in  RFC
       822  message  headers.	Parenthesized comments and bracketed addresses
       are permitted:

	  root:	bob (Bob, the postmaster)
	  joe: Joe Shmoe <shmoe@heaven.af.mil>

       Addresses with special characters must be quoted:

	  fred:	"spaced	out mailbox"@heaven.af.mil

       Address groups are not permitted, since colons have a different use  in
       /etc/aliases.

       Any  recipient  address	without	 a  fully qualified domain name	is fed
       through	the  defaulthost,  defaultdomain,  and	plusdomain  mechanisms
       described in qmail-header(5).

       COMPATIBILITY  WARNING:	sendmail's  handling of	quotes and backslashes
       violates	RFC 821	and RFC	822, and is not	supported by newaliases.   The
       qmail-local delivery mechanism lets each	user manage several addresses,
       so there	is no need for a special syntax	to get around forwarding.

MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS

       An instruction may list more than one recipient address:

	  alias: recip1, recip2, recip3

       Any message sent	to alias will be forwarded to all of the addresses.

       A forwarding instruction	may be split across several lines.  Each  line
       past the	first must either (1) begin with space or tab or (2) be	empty:

	  hostmaster:
	     fred,
	     joe

       COMPATIBILITY WARNING: sendmail requires	the colon to be	on  the	 first
       line  of	 a multi-line forwarding instruction.  newaliases doesn't care
       whether the colon is present at all.

       COMPATIBILITY WARNING: sendmail does not	permit blank lines in the mid-
       dle  of	continuations.	 This  has the undesirable effect that a blank
       line behaves differently	from a line containing a single	space.

COMMENTS

       Any line	in /etc/aliases	that begins with # is ignored:

	  # this is a comment
       fastforward will	run weather-server when	a message arrives for weather.

       COMPATIBILITY WARNING: Internet addresses can legitimately start	with a
       slash or	vertical bar.  newaliases treats anything with an  unquoted  @
       as  an  address.	 sendmail appears to have various problems coping with
       these addresses,	and with commands that contain @ signs.

       COMPATIBILITY WARNING: newaliases does not allow	a vertical bar	before
       double quotes.

INCLUDE FILES

       A  recipient  address  of  the form :include:file means ``every address
       listed in file.''  (Actually fastforward	 reads	file.bin;  see	newin-
       clude(1)	for further details.)

       Note  that  file	 is read by fastforward, not newaliases, so the	system
       administrator does not have to run newaliases every time	file  changes.
       file must be world-readable and accessible to fastforward.

       COMPATIBILITY  WARNING:	If an :include:	file is	unreadable or nonexis-
       tent, sendmail skips it;	fastforward defers delivery of the message.

       COMPATIBILITY WARNING: sendmail does not	permit spaces inside the  lit-
       eral text :include:.  newaliases	does.

       COMPATIBILITY  WARNING:	Versions  of  sendmail before V8 did not strip
       quotes from :include: filenames.

ALIAS OWNERS

       If there	is an alias for	owner-list, any	message	forwarded through list
       will  have  its	envelope  sender set to	owner-list, so that bounces go
       back to owner-list.

       COMPATIBILITY WARNING: When an alias includes the same  recipient  both
       inside and outside a mailing list, fastforward sends the	message	twice,
       once with each envelope sender.	sendmail sends the message only	 once;
       its  choice  of envelope	sender for that	recipient depends on the phase
       of the moon.

SEE ALSO

       fastforward(1),	setforward(1),	newinclude(1),	printforward(1),  dot-
       qmail(5)



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