Alias restrictions

There are some important restrictions that should be observed when using aliases, especially aliases in the alias file or alias database.

General alias restrictions


 The addresses in the alias file or  alias database or  stored in LDAP attributes such as ,  , or    should be formatted as pure RFC 822 addresses, e.g.,     . Do not try to use DECnet or other routing conventions that you can get away with in the rewrite rules table. Not only may such things fail, they may not produce a visible error (see the next item). Source routes are the only exotica that are permitted. 

 Certain types of bogus addresses in a group or list alias would not, prior to MS 6.1, generate a "bad address" return message. Specifically, if, for a given address in the group or list, the system name was illegal or there was a syntax error in the address specification, then the copy of the message to that address might be silently dropped and no one will be the wiser. In the case of mailing lists defined in the alias file or alias database, if the mailing list membership file associated with an alias does not exist, then mail to the list itself may be dropped. However, errors in the mailbox part of the address (e.g., "no such user") would be handled correctly. As of MS 6.1, there is enhanced handling for such cases. Errors in e-mail addresses in group definitions (but not errors in LDAP DNs or LDAP URLs, when group members are referenced via LDAP DN or LDAP URL), but where at least one apparently valid address is in the group, will be reported to (the rest of) the group; in the list case, the error will be reported to the list&#x27;s notification address. Note that errors in LDAP DN or LDAP URL, when group members are defined/referenced via such, will cause expansion of the group to abort. However, as of 7.0.5, errors in LDAP DN or LDAP URL during group access checking (during expansion of the group allowed to post to the group) will be ignored (and processing of the group access check will continue); previously such errors halted the expansion process for the access group. System managers should take care to test each list they set up to insure that all the recipient addresses are correct. The    utility provides a way to do such checking of  syntactic correctness of list definitions and list membership addresses. Groups and lists should be checked periodically and also whenever extensive changes are made. 

 Aliases in the alias file can contain up to 60 characters. Aliases in the database can contain up to 32 characters in a short database, up to 80 characters in a long database, and up to 256 characters (252 characters in iMS 5.2 and earlier) in a huge database. In the alias file, the addresses to which aliases translate can contain up to 256 characters (252 characters in iMS 5.2 and earlier). In the case of a short database, the translation value can contain up to 80 characters; in the case of a long database the translation value can contain up to 256 characters; in the case of a huge database the translation value can contain up to 1024 characters. In some cases failing to observe length restrictions may lead to addresses being silently dropped from lists. 

 The LDAP URL template value to which a  MTA is set is limited to 256 characters (252 characters in iMS 5.2 and earlier) before substitutions; the substitutions may insert additional material and the length after such substitutions is limited to 1024 characters. Note that the substitution of "known" attributes when asterisk,, is specified as the attribute-to-return is not considered as part of the regular substitution; this substitution is performed at a later step and the length after this "known" attributes substitution is limited to 4096 characters. 



Additional LDAP alias restrictions


 For performance reasons, the MTA normally caches the results of LDAP queries. Also, the LDAP server itself normally does some caching of searches. So changes to an LDAP alias will not always be "immediately" apparent to already running MTA processes. 



Additional alias file (or database) restrictions


 The MTA reads the alias file only as each program using the MTA initializes itself. This means that if you are using a permanently resident server (such as the SMTP server) you should be sure to stop and restart the server each time the alias file or any of the files it includes is changed -- first recompiling the MTA configuration, if you are using a compiled configuration (since a compiled configuration includes the alias file). (The   utility provides a simple way to restart any such MTA detached processes.) On the other hand, mailing list membership files referenced by the  alias file are read and reread as needed, so servers need not be restarted when one of these files is changed. </li>

 The alias file is always read into memory in its entirety each time the MTA is used. All files included by the primary alias file are also loaded into memory. (Mailing list membership files are not loaded into memory.) The use of a huge alias file can eat up lots of memory. Liberal use of the mailing list membership reference operator,, to reference long lists is recommended. Long lists of addresses coded directly into the alias file or any files it includes should be avoided. Use of an alias database for large numbers of aliases is also recommended. </li>

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See also:
 * test -rewrite utility
 * alias_entry_cache_timeout MTA Option
 * cnbuild utility
 * alias_url0 MTA Option
 * restart utility
 * Alias file format
 * Aliases