    POSTALIAS(1)                                                      POSTALIAS(1)

    NAME
           postalias - Postfix alias database maintenance

    SYNOPSIS
           postalias [-Nfinoprsvw] [-c config_dir] [-d key] [-q key]
                   [file_type:]file_name ...

    DESCRIPTION
           The  postalias(1)  command  creates or queries one or more
           Postfix alias databases, or updates an existing  one.  The
           input  and output file formats are expected to be compati-
           ble with Sendmail version 8, and are expected to be  suit-
           able for the 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 spec-
           tator processes.

           The format of Postfix alias input files  is  described  in
           aliases(5).

           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 btree:,  dbm:  or  hash:.  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  regexp: and pcre:. This resulted in
           loss of information with $number substitutions.

           Options:

           -c config_dir
                  Read the main.cf configuration file  in  the  named
                  directory  instead  of  the  default  configuration
                  directory.

           -d key Search the specified maps for key  and  remove  one
                  entry  per  map.   The exit status is zero when the
                  requested information was found.

                  If a key value of - 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.

           -f     Do not fold the lookup key to lower case while cre-
                  ating 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.

           -i     Incremental  mode. Read entries from standard input
                  and  do  not  truncate  an  existing  database.  By
                  default,  postalias(1)  creates a new database from
                  the entries in file_name.

           -N     Include the terminating null character that  termi-
                  nates  lookup  keys and values. By default, postal-
                  ias(1) does whatever is the default  for  the  host
                  operating system.

           -n     Don't  include  the terminating null character that
                  terminates lookup  keys  and  values.  By  default,
                  postalias(1)  does  whatever is the default for the
                  host operating system.

           -o     Do not release root privileges  when  processing  a
                  non-root input file. By default, postalias(1) drops
                  root privileges and runs as the source  file  owner
                  instead.

           -p     Do not inherit the file access permissions from the
                  input file when creating a new file.  Instead, cre-
                  ate  a  new  file  with  default access permissions
                  (mode 0644).

           -q key Search the specified maps for  key  and  write  the
                  first  value  found  to the standard output stream.
                  The exit status is zero when the requested informa-
                  tion was found.

                  If a key value of - is specified, the program reads
                  key values  from  the  standard  input  stream  and
                  writes  one  line of key: value output for each key
                  that was found. The exit status  is  zero  when  at
                  least one of the requested keys was found.

           -r     When  updating  a  table,  do  not  complain  about
                  attempts to update existing entries, and make those
                  updates anyway.

           -s     Retrieve  all database elements, and write one line
                  of key: value output for each element. The elements
                  are  printed in database order, which is not neces-
                  sarily 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.

           -v     Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Mul-
                  tiple -v options  make  the  software  increasingly
                  verbose.

           -w     When  updating  a  table,  do  not  complain  about
                  attempts to update  existing  entries,  and  ignore
                  those attempts.

           Arguments:

           file_type
                  The  database type. To find out what types are sup-
                  ported, use the "postconf -m" command.

                  The postalias(1) command can  query  any  supported
                  file  type,  but  it  can create only the following
                  file types:

                  btree  The  output   is   a   btree   file,   named
                         file_name.db.   This is available on systems
                         with support for db databases.

                  cdb    The output is one file named  file_name.cdb.
                         This  is  available  on systems with support
                         for cdb databases.

                  dbm    The output  consists  of  two  files,  named
                         file_name.pag  and  file_name.dir.   This is
                         available on systems with  support  for  dbm
                         databases.

                  hash   The   output   is   a   hashed  file,  named
                         file_name.db.  This is available on  systems
                         with support for db databases.

                  sdbm   The  output  consists  of  two  files, named
                         file_name.pag and  file_name.dir.   This  is
                         available  on  systems with support for sdbm
                         databases.

                  When no file_type is specified, the  software  uses
                  the  database  type specified via the default_data-
                  base_type  configuration  parameter.   The  default
                  value  for this parameter depends on the host envi-
                  ronment.

           file_name
                  The name of the alias  database  source  file  when
                  creating a database.

    DIAGNOSTICS
           Problems  are  logged  to the standard error stream and to
           syslogd(8).   No  output  means  that  no  problems   were
           detected.  Duplicate  entries  are skipped and are flagged
           with a warning.

           postalias(1) terminates with zero exit status in  case  of
           success  (including  successful "postalias -q" lookup) and
           terminates with non-zero exit status in case of failure.

    ENVIRONMENT
           MAIL_CONFIG
                  Directory with Postfix configuration files.

           MAIL_VERBOSE
                  Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes.

    CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
           The following main.cf parameters are  especially  relevant
           to this program.

           The  text  below  provides  only  a parameter summary. See
           postconf(5) for more details including examples.

           alias_database (see 'postconf -d' output)
                  The alias databases for local(8) delivery that  are
                  updated with "newaliases" or with "sendmail -bi".

           config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output)
                  The  default  location  of  the Postfix main.cf and
                  master.cf configuration files.

           berkeley_db_create_buffer_size (16777216)
                  The per-table I/O buffer  size  for  programs  that
                  create Berkeley DB hash or btree tables.

           berkeley_db_read_buffer_size (131072)
                  The  per-table  I/O  buffer  size for programs that
                  read Berkeley DB hash or btree tables.

           default_database_type (see 'postconf -d' output)
                  The default database type for use in newaliases(1),
                  postalias(1) and postmap(1) commands.

           syslog_facility (mail)
                  The syslog facility of Postfix logging.

           syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output)
                  The  mail  system  name  that  is  prepended to the
                  process name in syslog  records,  so  that  "smtpd"
                  becomes, for example, "postfix/smtpd".

    STANDARDS
           RFC 822 (ARPA Internet Text Messages)

    SEE ALSO
           aliases(5), format of alias database input file.
           local(8), Postfix local delivery agent.
           postconf(1), supported database types
           postconf(5), configuration parameters
           postmap(1), create/update/query lookup tables
           newaliases(1), Sendmail compatibility interface.
           syslogd(8), system logging

    README FILES
           DATABASE_README, Postfix lookup table overview

    LICENSE
           The Secure Mailer license must be  distributed  with  this
           software.

    AUTHOR(S)
           Wietse Venema
           IBM T.J. Watson Research
           P.O. Box 704
           Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA

                                                                      POSTALIAS(1)