Alias Administration

Mail aliases redirect mail sent to a name or to a list of recipients. The Netra alias administration enables you to add and modify aliases, which mail a copy of a message sent to the name, to one or more users. Typically, such aliases are used to distribute messages to an interest group or to redirect single users' mail, either because their mail should go to another server, or because they receive mail under an alternative name. Mail aliases that map names to a group of recipients are called as mailing lists, while mail aliases that map a name to a single user are called alias names.

Mailing Lists

An example of how you might use a mailing list is to send messages to you volleyball team members. You could create an alias with the name "vball" that has the email addresses of all the team members as the recipients. This way, mail sent to "vball" reaches the whole team without the sender needing to know the members' individual addresses (or even exactly who is on the team at any given point). When a member leaves or a new member joins, you update the alias.

Alias Names

Alias names redirect mail to single users. For instance, the user Tom Jones with user name "tom" may want to receive mail as "tjones". In this case, you would add an alias with the name "tjones" and the single recipient "tom." If John Smith, with user name "john," has left and wants to receive mail at his new address at "otherdomain," add an alias that maps "john" to "jsmith@otherdomain."