xref: /openbsd/usr.sbin/smtpd/aliases.5 (revision d415bd75)
1.\"	$OpenBSD: aliases.5,v 1.17 2021/02/13 07:20:49 jmc Exp $
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3.\" Copyright (c) 2012 Gilles Chehade <gilles@poolp.org>
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17.Dd $Mdocdate: February 13 2021 $
18.Dt ALIASES 5
19.Os
20.Sh NAME
21.Nm aliases
22.Nd aliases file for smtpd
23.Sh DESCRIPTION
24This manual page describes the format of the
25.Nm
26file, as used by
27.Xr smtpd 8 .
28An alias, in its simplest form, is used to assign an arbitrary name
29to an email address or a group of email addresses.
30This provides a convenient way to send mail.
31For example an alias could refer to all users of a group:
32email to that alias would be sent to all members of the group.
33Much more complex aliases can be defined however:
34an alias can refer to other aliases,
35be used to send mail to a file instead of another person,
36or to execute various commands.
37.Pp
38Within the file,
39.Ql #
40is a comment delimiter; anything placed after it is discarded.
41The file consists of key/value mappings of the form:
42.Bd -filled -offset indent
43key: value1, value2, value3, ...
44.Ed
45.Pp
46.Em key
47is always folded to lowercase before alias lookups to ensure that
48there can be no ambiguity.
49The key is expanded to the corresponding values,
50which consist of one or more of the following:
51.Bl -tag -width Ds
52.It Em user
53A user on the host machine.
54The user must have a valid entry in the
55.Xr passwd 5
56database file.
57.It Ar /path/to/file
58Append messages to
59.Ar file ,
60specified by its absolute pathname.
61.It | Ns Ar command
62Pipe the message to
63.Ar command
64on its standard input.
65The command is run under the privileges of the daemon's unprivileged account.
66.It : Ns Ar include : Ns Ar /path/to/file
67Include any definitions in
68.Ar file
69as alias entries.
70The format of the file is identical to this one.
71.It Ar user-part@domain-part
72An email address in RFC 5322 format.
73If an address extension is appended to the user-part,
74it is first compared for an exact match.
75It is then stripped so that an address such as user+ext@example.com
76will only use the part that precedes
77.Sq +
78as a
79.Em key .
80.It Ar error : Ns Ar code message
81A status code and message to return.
82The code must be 3 digits,
83starting 4XX (TempFail) or 5XX (PermFail).
84The message must be present and can be freely chosen.
85.El
86.Sh FILES
87.Bl -tag -width "/etc/mail/aliasesXXX" -compact
88.It Pa /etc/mail/aliases
89Default
90.Nm
91file.
92.El
93.Sh SEE ALSO
94.Xr smtpd.conf 5 ,
95.Xr makemap 8 ,
96.Xr newaliases 8 ,
97.Xr smtpd 8
98.Sh HISTORY
99The
100.Nm
101file format appeared in
102.Bx 4.0 .
103