Hi,

I have a distribution list called /nisserver/sysadmin/user-alias-files/all_users. The contents of the file have the userid/usernames of the techs in my company.
These userid/usernames in the file do not have the @abc.com appended to them. After I type the newaliases command the results look like this:

nisserver# newaliases
/etc/mail/aliases: 7 aliases, longest 71 bytes, 293 bytes total

Below is the last lines of the /etc/mail/aliases file:

#######################
# Local aliases below #
#######################

sysadm: joe.schmoe@abc.com,frank.n.scents@abc.com
all_users: :include:/nisserver/sysadmin/user-alias-files/all_users

When I try to address an email to this list in Outlook like this:

all_users@abc.com

I get a "undeliverable" message from the system like so:

From: System Administrator
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 11:29 AM
To: all_users@abc.com
Subject: Undeliverable:some text

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: some text
Sent: 12/16/2005 11:28 AM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

all_users@abc.com on 12/16/2005 11:29 AM
Unable to expand a distribution list to deliver the message to its members. Try again or contact your system administrator.
< abc.com #5.2.4>

My question is: What is the "Unable to expand a distribution list" at the end of the message mean? And more importantly, how do I fix this?

I'm a noob sysadmin, so layman's terms would be greatly appreciated.

OS: Solaris 5.8
Platform: SunBlade 100.

Outlook will not know of the distribution list specified in a specific Unix server like what you specified ... try sending the mail to all_users@hostname.abc.com ...

Sorry, I edited the mail message and left out the unix server name. Here is the correct returned message:

When I try to address an email to this list in Outlook like this:

all_users@nisserver.abc.com

I get a "undeliverable" message from the system like so:

From: System Administrator
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 11:29 AM
To: all_users@nisserver.abc.com
Subject: Undeliverable:some text

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: some text
Sent: 12/16/2005 11:28 AM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

all_users@nisserver.abc.com on 12/16/2005 11:29 AM
Unable to expand a distribution list to deliver the message to its members. Try again or contact your system administrator.
< nisserver.abc.com #5.2.4>

there is a restriction noted in "man newaliases" that specifies aliases to be only about 1000 characters long --- could it be you're hitting this limit?

Well, I gave up on the dist list.

Instead I wrote a script that extracted the first field of the passwd file, then sent my all_users message to the contents of the extracted file. Works like a charm.

Thanks for your efforts.