taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) (09/15/90)
I'm looking for a couple of beta test sites to try out, and help work
out some of the bugs (and system dependencies) in my CheckAlias program.
I've attached the man page below as a teaser ... Once we've gotten
things stable, I will be releasing this code to comp.sources.unix...
Please indicate in your reply the approximate size of your alias file,
the OS that you're running, and similar useful information.
Thanks for your assistance!
-- Dave Taylor
Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California
taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor
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CHECKALIASES(1L) CHECKALIASES(1L)
NAME
checkalias - a program to validate sendmail alias files
SYNOPSIS
checkalias
checkalias -m mail-address
DESCRIPTION
Checkalias is designed to read in a sendmail alias file,
then fully expand all files, included files, program calls,
user ``.forward'' files, etc etc, and validate that they are
all deliverable addresses.
Among the various situations that are checked for are:
o Addresses it cannot understand (an example of this was
found on the very first run; we had an entry in the alias
file of the form ``alias::address'' rather than
``alias:address'').
o Addresses in a users ``.forward'' file that cannot be
locally delivered,
o Included files that don't exist any more (an example was
seen as another obsolete alias, where the entry remained
in the aliases file, but the actual included file had
long since been deleted),
o Included files that aren't currently readable by the
program,
o Included files that have non-address entries in them,
o Files destined as archives that either don't exist, or
are in a mode that prohibits sendmail from successfully
saving the message (this is probably one of the biggest
hassles of the entire system),
o Pipes to non-existent programs, or programs that aren't
listed as being executable (this is more of a warning
then an actual environment error as sendmail seems
blissfully unaware of any potential problems),
o Bad individual addresses (typographical errors, accounts
deleted, etc),
o Specific ``.forward'' files that aren't owned by the
right user, have the wrong permissions, empty
``.forward'' files, or those with inappropriate entries,
o Users mailboxes with wrong ownership or wrong
permissions.
o Aliases that occur more than once in the alias file.
To report its findings, the program defaults to simply
listing errors to standard output, but usage of the ``-m
mail-address'' will result in electronic mail being sent to
the specified address.
FILES
/usr/lib/aliases The sendmail alias file
/tmp/check.$$ CheckAliases temp file
$USER/.forward Individual users ``.forward'' files
AUTHOR
Dave Taylor, Intuitive Systems
<taylor@intuitive.com>
SEE ALSO
sendmail(UTIL)
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