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Nils
Asked: 2011-06-02 04:09:20 +0800 CST

Is there a limit for a logical line in /etc/aliases with linux

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I want to set up a maillist consisting of several e-mail-addresses using an alias in /etc/aliases.

Is there a known limitation here with regards to number of lines/chars/entries per alias?

From what I read in the manpage I can include a file containing the addresses for that alias.

I expect some hundred addresses. If this detail is important: I am using postfix on CentOS 5 x86_64.

linux centos email

3 Answers

  1. I'm not aware of what the upper limit of the aliases line length might be, and it probably depends on the mailer, postfix/sendmail/etc. But I'd recommend you using an include file where you have more entries than fingers, as it's much easier to manage and you can easily add/remove from the included file without having to rebuild your aliases database. There will be no issue with hundreds of lines in your file.

    The format in your /etc/aliases is:

    :include:/path/to/filename

    Within the file, you have one email per line.

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  2. Best Answer

    I've had some fairly complex /etc/aliases files on Postfix systems. The worst was 900+ lines with nested groups and references. The biggest list of recipients I had on one line was 30 or so. I haven't noticed a limit though, although there may be something hardcoded.

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  3. I just ran into a limitation, I think it is 1024 bytes for one alias. "newaliases" reports this but I missed it and it took me a while of confusion when I could not send mail to this particular alias. I edit the /etc/alias file, I do not use "include". My system is FreeBSD 10.1 using sendmail.

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