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)