POSTALIAS(1) POSTALIAS(1)
NAME
postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance
SYNOPSIS
postalias [-Nfinoprsvw] [-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 compati-
ble with Sendmail version 8, and are expected to be suit-
able 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 spec-
tator 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 cre-
ating 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 termi-
nates lookup keys and values. By default, postal-
ias(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, cre-
ate 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 informa-
tion 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 neces-
sarily 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.
-v Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Mul-
tiple -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 sup-
ported, 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.
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_data-
base_type configuration parameter. The default
value for this parameter depends on the host envi-
ronment.
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.
syslog_facility (mail)
The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
syslog_name (postfix)
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
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
POSTALIAS(1)