POSTALIAS(1)                General Commands Manual               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  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 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.

       -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  ta-
                     ble  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 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(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  pro-
       gram.

       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 con-
              figuration 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 (see 'postconf -d' output)
              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 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



                                                                  POSTALIAS(1)
