/etc/mail/aliases

Any alias established in the /etc/mail/aliases file can be used by any user who knows the name of the alias and the host name of the system that contains the file. Distribution list formats in a local /etc/mail/aliases file adhere to the following format:

aliasname: value,value,value...

where aliasname is the name the user will use when sending mail to this alias and value is a valid email address.

If your network is not running a name service, the /etc/mail/aliases file of each system should contain entries for all mail clients. You can either edit the file on each system or edit the file on one system and copy it to each of the other systems.

The aliases in the /etc/mail/aliases file are stored in text form. When you edit the /etc/mail/aliases file, run the newaliases program to recompile the database and make the aliases available in binary form to the sendmail program. Or you can use Administration Tool's Database Manager to administer the mail aliases stored in local /etc files.

You can create aliases for only local names--a current host name or no host name. For example, an alias entry for user ignatz who has a mailbox on the system saturn would have this entry in the /etc/mail/aliases file:

ignatz: ignatz@saturn

It is a good idea to create an administrative account for each mail server. You do this by assigning root a mailbox on the mail server and adding an entry to the /etc/mail/aliases file for root. For example, if the system saturn is a mailbox server, add the entry root: sysadmin@saturn to the /etc/mail/aliases file.

Normally, the root user only can edit this file. When using the Administration Tool, then all users in group 14, which is the sysadmin group, can change the local file. Another option is to create an entry like:

aliasname: :include:/path/aliasfile

where aliasname is the name the user will use when sending mail and /path/aliasfile is the full path to the file that includes the alias list. The alias file should include email entries, one entry on each line, and no other notations:

user1@host1
user2@host2

You can define additional mail files in /etc/mail/aliases to keep a log or a backup copy. The following entry stores all mail sent to aliasname in filename.

aliasname: /home/backup/filename

You can also route the mail to another process. The following stores a copy of the mail message in filename and prints a copy.

aliasname: "|tee -a /home/backup/filename |lp"