Sendmail, 3rd Edition

Name

userdb

Synopsis

The User Database is a special database file that you create for use by sendmail. It causes sender and recipient addresses to be rewritten under control of an external database. Ordinarily, any local address is first looked up in the aliases database. If it is not found there, that user’s ~/.forward is next examined. If the User Database is enabled, the address is looked up in that database after aliasing and before forwarding, but only if the selected delivery agent has the F=@ flag set (F=@).

In the sections that follow, we describe the use of this database in detail, but first we will note a few important points.

Although we illustrate here that a lookup can be done using a database file, a remote lookup can also be done via a User Database server, or via a network service. Those forms of lookup are described in UserDatabaseSpec.

You can also look up addresses in the User Database with rule sets using this userdb database-map type. To do so, you declare it like this:

Kname userdbswitches  field

Here, the name is the name you will use in later rule sets. The field is either a literal maildrop or mailname (see See this section). The possible switches are shown in Table 23-27.

Table 23-27. The userdb database-map type K command switches

Switch	§	Description
-a	-a	Append tag on successful match
-D	-D	Don’t use this database map if DeliveryMode=defer
-f	-f	Perform a case-insensitive search
-m	-m	Suppress replacement on match
-q	-q	Don’t strip quotes ...