newaliases(8)

newaliases8

Rebuild mail aliases

Usage

newaliases [-f file]

Overview

The newaliases utility makes changes to the mail aliases file visible to smtpd(8). It should be run every time the aliases(5) file is changed. The location of the alias file is defined in smtpd.conf(5), and defaults to /etc/mail/aliases.

The options are as follows:

-f file

Use file as the configuration file, instead of the default /etc/mail/smtpd.conf.

If using database (db) files, newaliases is equivalent to running makemap(8) as follows:

# makemap -t aliases /etc/mail/aliases

If using plain text files, newaliases is equivalent to running smtpctl(8) as follows:

# smtpctl update table aliases

Files

/etc/mail/aliases

List of local user mail aliases.

/etc/mail/virtual

List of virtual host aliases.

Exit status

The newaliases utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

Releases

53 releases since OpenBSD 2.8; the text changed 9 times.

  1. 2.8
  2. 2.9
  3. 3.0
  4. 3.1–4.1
  5. 4.2–4.8
  6. 4.9–5.4
  7. 5.5
  8. 5.6–5.8
  9. 6.0–6.3
  10. 6.4–8.0

-f since OpenBSD 5.6.

History

The newaliases command first appeared in OpenBSD 4.6 as a replacement for the equivalent command shipped with sendmail.

From man 8.0-current-20261101 in OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.