> Depends on what you want the alias file to be. You can have it as a dbm > which will need rebuilding, or as a plain text file which you can use
> lsearch with. RTFM about the aliasfile director. Just for info, I use an LDAP server to store all of my aliases as well
as my user accounts and this allows me to easily attach aliases to user
accounts and make sure that they are deleted when the account is.
Another by product of this is that you can very easily make a redundant
mail server network this way:
Replicate the LDAP directory amongst all of your mail servers so that
each one knows about all of your alias
Take mail delivery for all users with your main domain and alias the
main domain addresses to sub-domain addresses
Specify your servers in MX order of preference for the main domain
Specify each server to handle one sub-domain with the ISP's fall back
server as the last resort for each sub-domain
When one server fails or becomes disconnected from the net then all of
the organisation's mail will get delivered to the next server in order
of preference, mail that is aliased to that servers local sub-domain or
any of the other sub-domains apart from the downed server will still get
delivered, and mail intended for users in the sub-domain handled by the
downed server will get held pending delivery.
Each server will always know where mail should really be delivered for a
user because the aliases section of the LDAP tree is replicated amongst
them all.
You could achieve something similar with rsync and an ordinary aliases
file but LDAP just seems such a neat way of dealing with it. plus you
get all the advantages of a single login per user for all services on
any site that uses PAM_LDAP or NSS_LDAP for authentication.
Sorry is this is a bit nerdy :o)
Joe
PS. Netscape will also autocomplete addresses based on LDAP lookups so
you can also use it as a centrally stored address book.
