sendmail, 4th Edition

:include: Mailing Lists

The special notation :include: in the righthand side of an alias causes sendmail to read its list of recipients from an external file. For that directive to be recognized as special, any address that begins with :include: must select the local delivery agent and, beginning with V8.7, must have the F=: delivery-agent flag set (F=: (colon) on page 765). This is automatic with most configuration files, but if your configuration file does not automatically recognize the :include: directive, you will need to add a new rule near the end of your parse rule set 0 (The parse Rule Set 0 on page 696). For example:

R :include: $*     $@ $#local $: :include:$1

Beginning with V8.7 sendmail, any delivery agent for which the F=: flag (F=: (colon) on page 765) is set can also process :include: files. (Note that eliminating the F=: flag for all delivery agent definitions in your configuration file will disable this feature entirely.)

The :include: directive is used in aliases(5) files like this:

localname:   :include:/path

The expression :include: is literal. It must appear exactly as shown, colons and all, with no space between the colons and the “include.” As with any righthand side of an alias, there can be space between the alias colon and the lead colon of the :include:.

The /path is the full pathname of a file containing a list of recipients. It follows the :include: with intervening space allowed.

The /path should be a full pathname. If it is a relative name (such as ../file), it ...