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ALIASES(5) File Formats Manual ALIASES(5)

NAME
aliases - Postfix local alias database format

SYNOPSIS
newaliases

DESCRIPTION
The aliases(5) table provides a system-wide mechanism to redirect mail for local recipients.
The redirections are processed by the Postfix local(8) delivery agent.

Normally, the aliases(5) table is specified as a text file that serves as input to the
postalias(1) command. The result, an indexed file in dbm or db format, is used for fast
lookup by the mail system. Execute the command newaliases in order to rebuild the indexed
file after changing the Postfix alias database.

When the table is provided via other means such as NIS, LDAP or SQL, the same lookups are
done as for ordinary indexed files.

Alternatively, the table can be provided as a regular-expression map where patterns are given
as regular expressions. In this case, the lookups are done in a slightly different way as de‐
scribed below under "REGULAR EXPRESSION TABLES".

Users can control delivery of their own mail by setting up .forward files in their home di‐
rectory. Lines in per-user .forward files have the same syntax as the right-hand side of
aliases(5) entries.

The format of the alias database input file is as follows:

• An alias definition has the form

name: value1, value2, ...

• Empty lines and whitespace-only lines are ignored, as are lines whose first non-white‐
space character is a `#'.

• A logical line starts with non-whitespace text. A line that starts with whitespace
continues a logical line.

The name is a local address (no domain part). Use double quotes when the name contains any
special characters such as whitespace, `#', `:', or `@'. The name is folded to lowercase, in
order to make database lookups case insensitive.

In addition, when an alias exists for owner-name, this will override the envelope sender ad‐
dress, so that delivery diagnostics are directed to owner-name, instead of the originator of
the message (for details, see owner_request_special, expand_owner_alias and re‐‐
set_owner_alias). This is typically used to direct delivery errors to the maintainer of a
mailing list, who is in a better position to deal with mailing list delivery problems than
the originator of the undelivered mail.

The value contains one or more of the following:

address
Mail is forwarded to address, which is compatible with the RFC 822 standard.

/file/name
Mail is appended to /file/name. See local(8) for details of delivery to file. Deliv‐
ery is not limited to regular files. For example, to dispose of unwanted mail, de‐
flect it to /dev/null.

|command
Mail is piped into command. Commands that contain special characters, such as white‐
space, should be enclosed between double quotes. See local(8) for details of delivery
to command.

When the command fails, a limited amount of command output is mailed back to the
sender. The file /usr/include/sysexits.h defines the expected exit status codes. For
example, use "|exit 67" to simulate a "user unknown" error, and "|exit 0" to implement
an expensive black hole.

:include:/file/name
Mail is sent to the destinations listed in the named file. Lines in :include: files
have the same syntax as the right-hand side of alias entries.

A destination can be any destination that is described in this manual page. However,
delivery to "|command" and /file/name is disallowed by default. To enable, edit the
allow_mail_to_commands and allow_mail_to_files configuration parameters.

ADDRESS EXTENSION
When alias database search fails, and the recipient localpart contains the optional recipient
delimiter (e.g., user+foo), the search is repeated for the unextended address (e.g., user).

The propagate_unmatched_extensions parameter controls whether an unmatched address extension
(+foo) is propagated to the result of table lookup.

CASE FOLDING
The local(8) delivery agent always folds the search string to lowercase before database
lookup.

REGULAR EXPRESSION TABLES
This section describes how the table lookups change when the table is given in the form of
regular expressions. For a description of regular expression lookup table syntax, see reg‐‐
exp_table(5) or pcre_table(5). NOTE: these formats do not use ":" at the end of a pattern.

Each regular expression is applied to the entire search string. Thus, a search string
user+foo is not broken up into user and foo.

Regular expressions are applied in the order as specified in the table, until a regular ex‐
pression is found that matches the search string.

Lookup results are the same as with indexed file lookups. For security reasons there is no
support for $1, $2 etc. substring interpolation.

SECURITY
The local(8) delivery agent disallows regular expression substitution of $1 etc. in
alias_maps, because that would open a security hole.

The local(8) delivery agent will silently ignore requests to use the proxymap(8) server
within alias_maps. Instead it will open the table directly. Before Postfix version 2.2, the
local(8) delivery agent will terminate with a fatal error.

CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
The following main.cf parameters are especially relevant. The text below provides only a pa‐
rameter 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".

alias_maps (see 'postconf -d' output)
The alias databases that are used for local(8) delivery.

allow_mail_to_commands (alias, forward)
Restrict local(8) mail delivery to external commands.

allow_mail_to_files (alias, forward)
Restrict local(8) mail delivery to external files.

expand_owner_alias (no)
When delivering to an alias "aliasname" that has an "owner-aliasname" companion alias,
set the envelope sender address to the expansion of the "owner-aliasname" alias.

propagate_unmatched_extensions (canonical, virtual)
What address lookup tables copy an address extension from the lookup key to the lookup
result.

owner_request_special (yes)
Enable special treatment for owner-listname entries in the aliases(5) file, and don't
split owner-listname and listname-request address localparts when the recipient_delim‐
iter is set to "-".

recipient_delimiter (empty)
The set of characters that can separate a user name from its extension (example:
user+foo), or a .forward file name from its extension (example: .forward+foo).

Available in Postfix version 2.3 and later:

frozen_delivered_to (yes)
Update the local(8) delivery agent's idea of the Delivered-To: address (see
prepend_delivered_header) only once, at the start of a delivery attempt; do not update
the Delivered-To: address while expanding aliases or .forward files.

STANDARDS
RFC 822 (ARPA Internet Text Messages)

SEE ALSO
local(8), local delivery agent
newaliases(1), create/update alias database
postalias(1), create/update alias database
postconf(5), configuration parameters

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

ALIASES(5)