1.\" Copyright (c) 1985, 1991 The Regents of the University of California.
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff%
5.\"
6.\"     @(#)aliases.5	6.5 (Berkeley) 05/10/91
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Dt ALIASES 5
10.Os BSD 4
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm aliases
13.Nd aliases file for sendmail
14.Sh SYNOPSIS
15.Nm aliases
16.Sh DESCRIPTION
17This file describes user
18.Tn ID
19aliases used by
20.Pa /usr/sbin/sendmail .
21The file resides in
22.Pa /etc
23and
24is formatted as a series of lines of the form
25.Bd -filled -offset indent
26name: name_1, name2, name_3, . . .
27.Ed
28.Pp
29The
30.Em name
31is the name to alias, and the
32.Em name_n
33are the aliases for that name.
34Lines beginning with white space are continuation lines.
35Lines beginning with
36.Ql #
37are comments.
38.Pp
39Aliasing occurs only on local names.
40Loops can not occur, since no message will be sent to any person more than once.
41.Pp
42After aliasing has been done, local and valid recipients who have a
43.Dq Pa .forward
44file in their home directory have messages forwarded to the
45list of users defined in that file.
46.Pp
47This is only the raw data file; the actual aliasing information is
48placed into a binary format in the files
49.Pa /etc/aliases.dir
50and
51.Pa /etc/aliases.pag
52using the program
53.Xr newaliases 1 .
54A
55.Xr newaliases
56command should be executed each time the aliases file is changed for the
57change to take effect.
58.Sh SEE  ALSO
59.Xr newaliases 1 ,
60.Xr dbm 3 ,
61.Xr sendmail 8
62.Rs
63.%T "SENDMAIL Installation and Operation Guide"
64.Re
65.Rs
66.%T "SENDMAIL An Internetwork Mail Router"
67.Re
68.Sh BUGS
69Because of restrictions in
70.Xr dbm 3
71a single alias cannot contain more than about 1000 bytes of information.
72You can get longer aliases by ``chaining''; that is, make the last name in
73the alias be a dummy name which is a continuation alias.
74.Sh HISTORY
75The
76.Nm
77file format appeared in
78.Bx 4.0 .
79