.TH qmail-alias 8
.SH NAME
qmail-alias \- deliver or forward a mail message
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B qmail-alias
[
.B \-nN
]
.I user
.I homedir
.I local
.I dash
.I ext
.I domain
.I sender
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B qmail-alias
reads a mail message
and delivers it to
.I user
by the procedure described in
.BR dot-qmail(5) .

The message's envelope recipient is
.IR local@domain .
.B qmail-alias
records
.I local@domain
in a new
.B Delivered-To
header field.
If exactly the same
.B Delivered-To: \fIlocal@domain
already appears in the header,
.B qmail-alias
bounces the message,
to prevent mail forwarding loops.

The message's envelope sender is
.IR sender .
.B qmail-alias
records
.I sender
in a new
.B Return-Path
header field.

.I homedir
is the user's home directory.
It must be an absolute directory name.

.I dash
and
.I ext
identify the
.B .qmail\fIdashext
file used by
.BR qmail-alias ;
see
.BR dot-qmail(5) .
Normally
.I dash
is either empty or a lone hyphen.
If it is empty,
.B qmail-alias
treats a nonexistent
.B .qmail\fIext
the same way as an empty
.BR .qmail\fIext .

The standard input for
.B qmail-alias
must be a seekable file,
so that
.B qmail-alias
can read it more than once.
.SH "OPTIONS"
.TP
.B \-n
Instead of reading and delivering the message,
print a description of the delivery instructions.
.TP
.B \-N
(Default.) Read and deliver the message.
.SH "EXIT CODES"
0 if the delivery is completely successful;
nonzero if any delivery instruction failed.
Exit code 111
indicates temporary failure.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
dot-qmail(5),
envelopes(5),
qmail-command(8),
qmail-queue(8),
qmail-send(8),
qmail-lspawn(8)