POSTALIAS(1) POSTALIAS(1)
NAME
postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance
SYNOPSIS
postalias [-Nfinoprvw] [-c configdir] [-d key] [-q key]
[filetype:]filename ...
DESCRIPTION
The postalias command creates or queries one or more Postfix alias
databases, or updates an existing one. The input and output file for-
mats 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 the 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 programs.
The format of Postfix alias input files is described in aliases(5).
Options:
-c configdir
Read the main.cf configuration file in the named directory
instead of the default configuration directory.
-d key 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.
-f Do not fold the lookup key to lower case while creating or
querying a map.
-i Incremental mode. Read entries from standard input and do not
truncate an existing database. By default, postalias creates a
new database from the entries in filename.
-N Include the terminating null character that terminates lookup
keys and values. By default, Postfix does whatever is the
default for the host operating system.
-n Don't include the terminating null character that terminates
lookup keys and values. By default, Postfix does whatever is the
default for the host operating system.
-o Do not release root privileges when processing a non-root input
file. By default, postalias drops root privileges and runs as
the source file owner instead.
-p 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).
-q key 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.
-r When updating a table, do not warn about duplicate entries;
silently replace them.
-v Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple -v
options make the software increasingly verbose.
-w When updating a table, do not warn about duplicate entries;
silently ignore them.
Arguments:
filetype
The database type. To find out what types are supported, use the
"postconf -m"" command.
The postalias command can query any supported file type, but it
can create only the following file types:
btree The output is a btree file, named filename.db. This is
available only on systems with support for db databases.
dbm The output consists of two files, named filename.pag and
filename.dir. This is available only on systems with
support for dbm databases.
hash The output is a hashed file, named filename.db. This is
available only on systems with support for db databases.
Use the command postconf -m to find out what types of database
your Postfix installation can support.
When no filetype is specified, the software uses the database
type specified via the defaultdatabasetype configuration
parameter. The default value for this parameter depends on the
host environment.
filename
The name of the alias database source file when creating a data-
base.
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 terminates with zero exit status in case of success (includ-
ing successful postalias -q lookup) and terminates with non-zero exit
status in case of failure.
ENVIRONMENT
MAILCONFIG
Directory with Postfix configuration files.
MAILVERBOSE
Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes.
CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
The following main.cf parameters are especially relevant to this pro-
gram.
The text below provides only a parameter summary. See postconf(5) for
more details including examples.
aliasdatabase (see ''postconf -d'' output)
The alias databases for local(8) delivery that are updated with
"newaliases" or with "sendmail -bi".
configdirectory (see ''postconf -d'' output)
The default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf con-
figuration files.
berkeleydbcreatebuffersize (16777216)
The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that create Berkeley
DB hash or btree tables.
berkeleydbreadbuffersize (1310072)
The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that read Berkeley DB
hash or btree tables.
defaultdatabasetype (see ''postconf -d'' output)
The default database type for use in newaliases(1), postalias(1)
and postmap(1) commands.
syslogfacility (mail)
The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
syslogname (postfix)
The mail system name that is prepended to the process name in
syslog records, so that "smtpd" becomes, for example, "post-
fix/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 readmedirectory" or "postconf htmldirectory" to locate
this information.
DATABASEREADME, 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
POSTALIAS(1)
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