ALIASES(5)							File Formats Manual							ALIASES(5)

NAME

       aliases - aliases file for sendmail

SYNOPSIS

       /etc/aliases

DESCRIPTION

       This file describes user id aliases used by /usr/sbin/sendmail.	It is formatted as a series of lines of the form
	    name: name_1, name2, name_3, . . .
       The  name  is  the  name  to alias, and the name_n are the aliases for that name.  Lines beginning with white space are continuation lines.
       Lines beginning with `#' are comments.

       Aliasing occurs only on local names.  Loops can not occur, since no message will be sent to any person more than once.

       After aliasing has been done, local and valid recipients who have a ``.forward'' file in their home directory have  messages  forwarded	to
       the list of users defined in that file.

       This  is  only  the  raw  data  file;  the  actual  aliasing  information  is placed into a binary format in the files /etc/aliases.dir and
       /etc/aliases.pag using the program newaliases(1).  A newaliases command should be executed each time the aliases file is  changed  for  the
       change to take effect.

SEE  ALSO

       newaliases(1), dbm(3X), sendmail(8)
       SENDMAIL Installation and Operation Guide.
       SENDMAIL An Internetwork Mail Router.

BUGS

       Because	of restrictions in dbm(3X) a single alias cannot contain more than about 1000 bytes of information.  You can get longer aliases by
       ``chaining''; that is, make the last name in the alias be a dummy name which is a continuation alias.

4th Berkeley Distribution					 October 22, 1996							ALIASES(5)