postalias(1)

NAME

   postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance

SYNOPSIS

   postalias [-Nfinoprsuvw] [-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:

   -c config_dir
          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 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.

   -i     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.

   -N     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.

   -n     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.

   -o     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.

   -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 complain about attempts to  update
          existing entries, and make those updates anyway.

   -s     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.

   -u     Disable  UTF-8 support. UTF-8 support is enabled by default when
          "smtputf8_enable = yes". It requires that keys  and  values  are
          valid UTF-8 strings.

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

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

   Arguments:

   file_type
          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:

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

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

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

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

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

          sdbm   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.

   file_name
          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

   MAIL_CONFIG
          Directory with Postfix configuration files.

   MAIL_VERBOSE
          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.

   alias_database (see 'postconf -d' output)
          The alias databases for local(8) delivery that are updated  with
          "newaliases" or with "sendmail -bi".

   config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output)
          The  default  location  of  the  Postfix  main.cf  and master.cf
          configuration files.

   berkeley_db_create_buffer_size (16777216)
          The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that create  Berkeley
          DB hash or btree tables.

   berkeley_db_read_buffer_size (131072)
          The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that read Berkeley DB
          hash or btree tables.

   default_database_type (see 'postconf -d' output)
          The default database type for use in newaliases(1), postalias(1)
          and postmap(1) commands.

   smtputf8_enable (yes)
          Enable  preliminary SMTPUTF8 support for the protocols described
          in RFC 6531..6533.

   syslog_facility (mail)
          The syslog facility of Postfix logging.

   syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output)
          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

   Wietse Venema
   Google, Inc.
   111 8th Avenue
   New York, NY 10011, USA

                                                              POSTALIAS(1)

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