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POSTALIAS(1) POSTALIAS(1)
<b>NAME</b>
postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance
<b>SYNOPSIS</b>
<b>postalias</b> [<b>-Nfinoprsuvw</b>] [<b>-c</b> <i>config</i><b>_</b><i>dir</i>] [<b>-d</b> <i>key</i>] [<b>-q</b> <i>key</i>]
[<i>file</i><b>_</b><i>type</i>:]<i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i> ...
<b>DESCRIPTION</b>
The <a href="postalias.1.html"><b>postalias</b>(1)</a> command creates or queries one or more Postfix alias
databases, or updates an existing one. The input and output file for-
mats are expected to be compatible with Sendmail version 8, and are
expected to be suitable for 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 <a href="aliases.5.html"><b>aliases</b>(5)</a>.
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 <a href="DATABASE_README.html#types">btree</a>:, <a href="DATABASE_README.html#types">dbm</a>: or
<a href="DATABASE_README.html#types">hash</a>:. 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
<a href="regexp_table.5.html">regexp</a>: and <a href="pcre_table.5.html">pcre</a>:. This resulted in loss of information with $<i>number</i>
substitutions.
Options:
<b>-c</b> <i>config</i><b>_</b><i>dir</i>
Read the <a href="postconf.5.html"><b>main.cf</b></a> configuration file in the named directory
instead of the default configuration directory.
<b>-d</b> <i>key</i> Search the specified maps for <i>key</i> and remove one entry per map.
The exit status is zero when the requested information was
found.
If a key value of <b>-</b> 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.
<b>-f</b> 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.
<b>-i</b> Incremental mode. Read entries from standard input and do not
truncate an existing database. By default, <a href="postalias.1.html"><b>postalias</b>(1)</a> creates
a new database from the entries in <i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i>.
<b>-N</b> Include the terminating null character that terminates lookup
keys and values. By default, <a href="postalias.1.html"><b>postalias</b>(1)</a> does whatever is the
default for the host operating system.
<b>-n</b> Don't include the terminating null character that terminates
lookup keys and values. By default, <a href="postalias.1.html"><b>postalias</b>(1)</a> does whatever
is the default for the host operating system.
<b>-o</b> Do not release root privileges when processing a non-root input
file. By default, <a href="postalias.1.html"><b>postalias</b>(1)</a> drops root privileges and runs as
the source file owner instead.
<b>-p</b> 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).
<b>-q</b> <i>key</i> Search the specified maps for <i>key</i> and write the first value
found to the standard output stream. The exit status is zero
when the requested information was found.
Note: this performs a single query with the key as specified,
and does not make iterative queries with substrings of the key
as described in the <a href="aliases.5.html">aliases(5)</a> manual page.
If a key value of <b>-</b> is specified, the program reads key values
from the standard input stream and writes one line of <i>key: value</i>
output for each key that was found. The exit status is zero when
at least one of the requested keys was found.
<b>-r</b> When updating a table, do not complain about attempts to update
existing entries, and make those updates anyway.
<b>-s</b> Retrieve all database elements, and write one line of <i>key: value</i>
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.
<b>-u</b> Disable UTF-8 support. UTF-8 support is enabled by default when
"<a href="postconf.5.html#smtputf8_enable">smtputf8_enable</a> = yes". It requires that keys and values are
valid UTF-8 strings.
<b>-v</b> Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple <b>-v</b>
options make the software increasingly verbose.
<b>-w</b> When updating a table, do not complain about attempts to update
existing entries, and ignore those attempts.
Arguments:
<i>file</i><b>_</b><i>type</i>
The database type. To find out what types are supported, use the
"<b>postconf -m</b>" command.
The <a href="postalias.1.html"><b>postalias</b>(1)</a> command can query any supported file type, but
it can create only the following file types:
<b>btree</b> The output is a btree file, named <i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i><b>.db</b>. This is
available on systems with support for <b>db</b> databases.
<b>cdb</b> The output is one file named <i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i><b>.cdb</b>. This is
available on systems with support for <b>cdb</b> databases.
<b>dbm</b> The output consists of two files, named <i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i><b>.pag</b> and
<i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i><b>.dir</b>. This is available on systems with support
for <b>dbm</b> databases.
<b>fail</b> A table that reliably fails all requests. The lookup ta-
ble name is used for logging only. This table exists to
simplify Postfix error tests.
<b>hash</b> The output is a hashed file, named <i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i><b>.db</b>. This is
available on systems with support for <b>db</b> databases.
<b>lmdb</b> The output is a btree-based file, named <i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i><b>.lmdb</b>.
<b>lmdb</b> supports concurrent writes and reads from different
processes, unlike other supported file-based tables.
This is available on systems with support for <b>lmdb</b> data-
bases.
<b>sdbm</b> The output consists of two files, named <i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i><b>.pag</b> and
<i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i><b>.dir</b>. This is available on systems with support
for <b>sdbm</b> databases.
When no <i>file</i><b>_</b><i>type</i> is specified, the software uses the database
type specified via the <b><a href="postconf.5.html#default_database_type">default_database_type</a></b> configuration
parameter. The default value for this parameter depends on the
host environment.
<i>file</i><b>_</b><i>name</i>
The name of the alias database source file when creating a data-
base.
<b>DIAGNOSTICS</b>
Problems are logged to the standard error stream and to <b>syslogd</b>(8) or
<a href="postlogd.8.html"><b>postlogd</b>(8)</a>. No output means that no problems were detected. Duplicate
entries are skipped and are flagged with a warning.
<a href="postalias.1.html"><b>postalias</b>(1)</a> terminates with zero exit status in case of success
(including successful "<b>postalias -q</b>" lookup) and terminates with
non-zero exit status in case of failure.
<b>ENVIRONMENT</b>
<b>MAIL_CONFIG</b>
Directory with Postfix configuration files.
<b>MAIL_VERBOSE</b>
Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes.
<b>CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS</b>
The following <a href="postconf.5.html"><b>main.cf</b></a> parameters are especially relevant to this pro-
gram.
The text below provides only a parameter summary. See <a href="postconf.5.html"><b>postconf</b>(5)</a> for
more details including examples.
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#alias_database">alias_database</a> (see 'postconf -d' output)</b>
The alias databases for <a href="local.8.html"><b>local</b>(8)</a> delivery that are updated with
"<b>newaliases</b>" or with "<b>sendmail -bi</b>".
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#config_directory">config_directory</a> (see 'postconf -d' output)</b>
The default location of the Postfix <a href="postconf.5.html">main.cf</a> and <a href="master.5.html">master.cf</a> con-
figuration files.
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#berkeley_db_create_buffer_size">berkeley_db_create_buffer_size</a> (16777216)</b>
The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that create Berkeley
DB hash or btree tables.
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#berkeley_db_read_buffer_size">berkeley_db_read_buffer_size</a> (131072)</b>
The per-table I/O buffer size for programs that read Berkeley DB
hash or btree tables.
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#default_database_type">default_database_type</a> (see 'postconf -d' output)</b>
The default database type for use in <a href="newaliases.1.html"><b>newaliases</b>(1)</a>, <a href="postalias.1.html"><b>postalias</b>(1)</a>
and <a href="postmap.1.html"><b>postmap</b>(1)</a> commands.
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#import_environment">import_environment</a> (see 'postconf -d' output)</b>
The list of environment variables that a privileged Postfix
process will import from a non-Postfix parent process, or
name=value environment overrides.
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#smtputf8_enable">smtputf8_enable</a> (yes)</b>
Enable preliminary SMTPUTF8 support for the protocols described
in <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6531">RFC 6531</a>, <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6532">RFC 6532</a>, and <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6533">RFC 6533</a>.
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#syslog_facility">syslog_facility</a> (mail)</b>
The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#syslog_name">syslog_name</a> (see 'postconf -d' output)</b>
A prefix that is prepended to the process name in syslog
records, so that, for example, "smtpd" becomes "prefix/smtpd".
Available in Postfix 2.11 and later:
<b><a href="postconf.5.html#lmdb_map_size">lmdb_map_size</a> (16777216)</b>
The initial OpenLDAP LMDB database size limit in bytes.
<b>STANDARDS</b>
<a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc822">RFC 822</a> (ARPA Internet Text Messages)
<b>SEE ALSO</b>
<a href="aliases.5.html">aliases(5)</a>, format of alias database input file.
<a href="local.8.html">local(8)</a>, Postfix local delivery agent.
<a href="postconf.1.html">postconf(1)</a>, supported database types
<a href="postconf.5.html">postconf(5)</a>, configuration parameters
<a href="postmap.1.html">postmap(1)</a>, create/update/query lookup tables
<a href="newaliases.1.html">newaliases(1)</a>, Sendmail compatibility interface.
<a href="postlogd.8.html">postlogd(8)</a>, Postfix logging
syslogd(8), system logging
<b>README FILES</b>
<a href="DATABASE_README.html">DATABASE_README</a>, Postfix lookup table overview
<b>LICENSE</b>
The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software.
<b>AUTHOR(S)</b>
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
POSTALIAS(1)
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