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