Creating a local alias for mail

Creating local mail aliases allows you to create groups or distribution lists to which mail can be sent.

In this scenario, geo@medussa, mark@zeus, ctw@athena, and dsf@plato will be added to the testers mail alias. After the testers alias is created, glenda@hera will be given ownership of the alias.

After the testers alias is added to the /etc/mail/aliases file, the aliases database is recompiled using the sendmail command. After the database is recompiled, email can be sent to the testers alias.

Things to Consider

The information in this how-to scenario was tested using specific versions of AIX. The results you obtain might vary significantly depending on your version and level of AIX.

Use the following steps to create a local mail alias:

Open the /etc/mail/aliases file using your favorite text editor.
On a blank line, add the alias name, followed by a colon and a list of comma-separated recipients. For example, the following entry defines the testers alias:
```
testers: geo@medussa, mark@zeus, ctw@athena, dsf@plato
```
Create an owner for the alias. If the sendmail command is unsuccessful in sending mail to the alias, it sends an error message to the owner.
Add a line in the /etc/mail/aliases to specify the owner. The format for this line is owner-groupname: owner, where groupname is the name of the alias and owner is the e-mail address of the owner. In this example, glenda@hera is made the owner of the testers alias:
```
testers: geo@medussa, mark@zeus, ctw@athena, dsf@plato owner-testers: glenda@hera
```
After the alias is created, run the sendmail -bi command to recompile the aliases database. You will need to run this command each time you update your /etc/mail/aliases file.

You can now send email to the testers alias.