Creating Aliases

Creating Aliases

An alias is another name for an email address, a number of addresses, or an application. Do not create aliases that are identical to existing user IDs; mail addressed to an alias that is identical to a user ID will go to the user account represented by the alias, not to the account represented by the user ID. For more information on mail processing order, see "Processing Order".

To comply with the Internet mail RFC specifications, you must have a postmaster alias so Internet mail users can send mail to postmaster@your_domain_name. The postmaster alias is set up automatically by the IMail Server installation as an alias for the root account. You can change the postmaster alias to point to a different mail account.

Types of Aliases

You can create four types of aliases:

Standard alias. A standard alias is a name that indicates a single user ID on the same system, up to four user IDs on the same system, a remote mail address, up to four remote mail addresses, another alias, or any combination of these.
Group alias. A group alias is a name that represents a group of more than 4 valid mail addresses. It is recommended that a group alias be used for less than 50 users. For more than 50 users, it is recommended that a list be set up instead.

Note: A standard alias will automatically be changed to a group alias if more than four users are added to it. A group alias was called a "list alias" in earlier versions of IMail Server.

Program alias. A program alias points to a program that can accept the mail message for further processing. For example, a program alias could point to a word processor.
Beeper/Pager alias. A beeper/pager alias sends a message to a beeper or pager.

Adding an Alias

You can create aliases one at a time in the IMail Administrator; you can also add a batch of aliases at once. See "Command Line Applications".

If you intend to add a group alias, you can prepare the text file before you add the group alias. Enter all the mail addresses you want to include in the group into a text file; enter one address per line followed by a carriage return. Place the file in the host directory.

If you intend to create a program alias, copy the application to the IMail Server system. You can also use a .bat file to store the commands you want to use. (In this case, the program alias will point to the .bat file, making it easy to edit the .bat file at any time without having to change the program alias.)

To add an alias using IMail Administrator (assuming Tools > Use Wizards is cleared):

In the left panel, select the host to which you want to add an alias.
Select the Aliases folder.
Click Add Alias. The New Alias dialog box appears.

Enter a name for the alias. Alias names are limited to 45 characters and must be created from the character set of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, - (hyphen) and _ (underscore). The name cannot contain spaces and must be unique for this mail host.

Select the type of alias to add. For more information, see "Types of Aliases".
Click OK.
If you selected Standard alias, you see the following tab. Enter one complete mail address per line (in the form userid@domain.com). Note that if you enter more than four addresses, the alias will be converted to a group alias.

If you selected Group alias, the following panel appears.

Do one of the following:

If the addresses for the group already exist in a text file (as described above), enter the File Name.
Enter the email address of each person in the group, one address per line.

If you selected Program alias, enter the path and name of the executable program, as well as any required command line parameters. When an email is sent to the program alias, the executable program is invoked and the entire contents of the message are passed to it. The program can then do anything it wants with the file and must delete any .tmp files when done.

If you selected Beeper/Pager alias, see "Sending Mail to a Pager or Beeper".
After entering the alias properties, click Next and then Finish.

Processing Mail to Users that Don't Exist

To process mail addressed to users that are not registered on the local host, you can create a special alias, nobody. If the nobody alias exists, all incorrectly addressed mail is sent wherever you specify.

Note that the use of the "nobody" alias prevents messages from bouncing back to the sender.

Note: A standard alias will automatically be changed to a group alias if more than four users are added to it. A group alias was called a "list alias" in earlier versions of IMail Server.

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