.\" @(#)$Id: Alias.guide,v 1.2 1998/10/20 19:57:19 hurtta Exp $
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.\"  A guide to the ELM alias system and so on.
.\"  format with:
.\"      tbl Alias.guide | troff tmac.n - > Alias.format'
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.\"  (C) Copyright 1986,1987 Dave Taylor
.\"  (C) Copyright 1988-1992 Usenet Community Trust
.\"  Elm is now in the public trust. 
.\"
.\"
.\"
.tm Have we been run through "tbl" first?? I hope so!
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\f3The Elm Alias System Users Guide\f1
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\f2What aliases are and how to use them
in the \f3Elm\fP mail system\f1
.sp 3
The Elm Mail System
(Version 2.4)
.sp 2
Syd Weinstein, Elm Coordinator
Datacomp Systems, Inc.
3837 Byron Road
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006-2320
.sp
email: elm\s-1@\s+1DSI.COM  or  dsinc\s-1!\s+1elm
.sp |9.0i
\s18\f3\*(ct\f1\s12 Copyright 1986,1987 by Dave Taylor
\s18\f3\*(ct\f1\s12 Copyright 1988-1992 by The USENET Community Trust
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.ad
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\f3The Elm Alias System Users Guide\f1
.ds h0 "Alias Users Guide
.ds h1
.ds h2 "Version 2.4
.ds f0 "October 1, 1992
.ds f1
.ds f2 "Page %
.sp
.ps 10
.ss 12
.vs 12
(The Elm Mail System, \*(h2)
.sp
\*(f0
.sp 2
Syd Weinstein
Datacomp Systems, Inc.
3837 Byron Road
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006-2320
.sp
email: elm\s-1@\s+1DSI.COM  or  dsinc\s-1!\s+1elm
.sp 2
Derived from
\*QThe Elm Mail System, Version 2.0\*U
by
Dave Taylor
Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California
email: taylor\s-1@\s+1intuitive.com  or  limbo\s-1!\s+1taylor
.ce 0
.sp 3
This document is intended as a supplement to the \f2Elm Users Guide\f1
and is only of interest to those users desiring more knowledge
about how aliases work and how to create strange and exciting
aliases for their systems (okay, so maybe it's not \f2that\f1 exciting!)
.sp
This document is broken up into the following sections;
user aliases,
group aliases,
system aliases,
editing and installing new aliases,
general warnings and other chit-chat.
.sp
.hn 1 User Aliases

The simplest type of aliases in the Elm system are individual
user aliases.  These are made up of three parts;

.nf
	\f2aliasname list\f1  =  \f2username\f1  =  \f2address\f1
.fi

Where the \f2aliasname list\f1 is either a single aliasname\s-1\u1\d\s0
.fn
1. Aliasnames can be any combination of letters, numbers, hyphens (\*q\-\*u),
periods (\*q.\*u), or underscores (\*q_\*u).  Letter case is not significant,
that is, \*QFRED\*U, \*QFred\*U, and \*Qfred\*U are identical.
.ef
or a list of aliasnames separated by commas.  Aliasnames are case insensitive and will be
converted to all lower case by the alias system.
.sp
\f2Username\f1 is used to indicate the full \*Qreal name\*U of the user.  For
example, if you had an alias for \*Qtaylor\*U to get to me, the
\f2username\f1 field would contain \*QDave Taylor\*U or
perhaps \*QDave Taylor at HP\*U
or some other permutation.  The
name can optionally be entered in the format of \*QTaylor; Dave\*U.  When
this is done, the alias system can sort aliases on a last name basis
for presentation on the alias menu within Elm.
Elm uses this information to add the user's full name to the addresses of
outbound mail to get more readable addresses.  No
matter which format a name is entered, Elm displays it
and puts it in mail headers the way you would expect (i.e., \*QDave Taylor\*U).
.sp
\f2Address\f1 is either the user's full electronic mail address or, if
your system uses a smart mailer, the minimum address needed to specify
the destination.  For example, say my smart mailer
contained information on how to get to machine \*Qhp-sdd\*U and I wanted
to have an address for my friend Ken there \(em I could have his address
specified as simply \*Qken@hp-sdd\*U (or alternatively \*Qhp-sdd!ken\*U since
the two are functionally equivalent).
.sp
Let's get on to some examples, shall we?
.sp
Consider this excerpt from my own \f2.elm/aliases.text\f1 file;

.nf
.ft CW
.zf
.in .5i
.ta \w'frank,minjarez 'u \w'frank,minjarez = Frank Minjarez 'u
# Mail aliases for Dave Taylor
# Friends from UCSD
addie	= Addie Silva	= addie@hp-sdd.SDD.HP.COM
frank,minjarez	= Frank Minjarez	= Minjarez.Verify@dockmaster.ddn.mil
pizzini	= Ken Pizzini	= hplabs!ucbvax!ucdavis!pai!ken
george	= Burdell; George P., Famous GT Guy	= gburdell@matd.gatech.edu
.ft 1

.in 0
.fi
Note that the alias for Frank Minjarez has two \f2aliasnames\f1 associated
with it, \f2frank\f1 and \f2minjarez\f1.
Also notice that the first and second aliases
use the Internet style naming convention of \f2user@machine\f1
whereas the third uses the \f2uucp\f1 notation of \f2machine!user\f1.
The fourth alias illustrates two features for the \f2username\f1
field.  An individual's name can be entered in the form of
\f2lastname; firstname, comment\f1 which allows the alias system to be able
to sort alias names on a last name basis.  Additionally, any
text after the comma is treated as a comment.  It is stored in
the alias file and displayed on the alias menu but will not
appear in the comment field (between the parentheses) in the header
of a message.  This allows you to enter useful notes about an
individual that you would not otherwise want to include in the
\f3To:\f1 header of a mail message.
.sp
For the most part, the notational format is transparent within the
alias file \(em the only time it \f2does\f1 make a difference
is if you have to specify more than the machine that the user is
receiving mail on (as in the third example above).
.sp
Suffice to say that if you must specify any sort of uucp route
that you should use the uucp notation as much as possible to ensure
that the system expands the correct machine name.  Similarly, if
you're bouncing mail through different Internet sites (to
get to a foreign system, as in the example below) you should use the
notation that system expects, e.g.:

.ft CW
.zf
.ti .5i
listserv%byuadmin.BITNET@rugters.edu
.ft 1
.sp
.hn 1 Group Aliases

After the confusion of user aliases, group aliases are even more
fun!  For the most part the notation is very similar:

.nf
.ti .5i
\f2aliasname list\f1   =   \f2groupname\f1   =   \f2address list\f1
.fi

Where \f2aliasname list\f1 and \f2groupname\f1 are exactly equivalent
to the corresponding fields in user aliases.
.sp
The interesting part is the \f2address list\f1 field; this
field is actually in the same notation as the aliasname list (i.e.,
a list of addresses separated by commas),
so it's really quite easy to create.
It's best to illustrate by example:

.ft CW
.zf
.nf
.in .5i
friends, mypals = The Gang of Six = joe, larry, mary, joanna,
\h'\w'friends, mypals = The Gang of Six = 'u'nancy, michael
.ft 1
.in 0
.fi

Notice that you can continue onto as many lines as you'd like so
long as each additional line starts with either a \f2<space>\f1 or a
\f2<tab>\f1 character.
.sp
At times it may be desirable to send a message to everyone in
the group except one or two people.  This can be accomplished by
adding the individuals' actual IDs to the \f3To:\f1 list, preceded
by a minus sign (\*q\-\*u).  For example, if you were having a surprise
party for \f2nancy\f1 from the above group and you wanted to discuss the
details with the others, you could mail the message to:

.ft CW
.zf
.nf
.in .5i
friends \-nancy
.ft 1
.in 0
.fi

Unlike in prior versions of Elm, group alias addresses need not
be \f2previously defined aliases\f1 or valid mail addresses on
the current machine.  Any valid delivery address, local user, or
prior user or group alias may now be part of a group alias
\f2address list\f1.
.sp
.hn 1 System Aliases

System aliases are functionally equivalent to the individual Elm
alias lists each Elm user has (both user aliases and group aliases)
but are \f2read only\f1 for everyone but the Elm administrator.  The
format of the file is identical to the users' files, and the only difference is
that this file is expected to be located in the directory that contains
the \f3system_hash_file\f1 and \f3system_data_file\f1 files (see the
\f2Elm Configuration Guide\f1 for more details on these variables).
.sp
Simply create the system alias file in the specified directory
as you would a normal alias file, and install it using the newalias
command with the -g option (see the following section for more details
on that).  Voila!!
.sp
.hn 1 Editing and Installing New Aliases

To install new aliases, you need merely to create, or modify,
the file \f2$HOME/.elm/aliases.text\f1 until you're
satisfied with it and it meets the requirements discussed above.
You can then try to install it with the command:

.ti .5i
$ \f3newalias\f1

which either reports the number of aliases installed
or the errors encountered trying to parse and store the
given alias list.
.sp
Note that blank lines are no problem and that comments are not only
allowed but actually encouraged, and must have \*q#\*u as the first
character of each comment line.
.sp
.hn 1 Other Stuff not Covered Yet

Probably the biggest question you have in your mind right now
is \*QBut how the heck does this relate to my existing \f2Berkeley Mail\f1
aliases and the lower-level \f2sendmail\f1 alias system?\*U  Well,
rest assured that if you \f2really\f1 want to have
your aliases down in the transport you can.  No problem.
.sp
And for those ex-\f2Berkeley Mail\f1 fans, you can translate your
aliases into the format that Elm wants by running them
through the \f2awk\f1 script listed in the appendix.
.sp
Finally, if you have any problems or questions, try looking in
the \f2newalias\f1 manual entry.
.bp
.ce 99
\f3Appendix One
An \f2awk\fP Script for Translating Aliases
from a Berkeley Mail \f2.mailrc\fP File
to an Elm \f2.elm/aliases.text\fP File\f1
.ce 0
.sp
.nf

.ta .5i
.ft CW
.zf
BEGIN { print "# Elm .elm/aliases.text file, from a .mailrc file..."
	print ""
	}
next_line == 1 {
	next_line = 0;
	group = ""
	for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) {
	  if (i == NF && $i == "\\\\") sep = ""
	  else                       sep = ", "
	  if ($i == "\\\\") {
	    group = sprintf("%s,", group)
	    next_line = 1;
	  }
	  else if (length(group) > 0)
	    group = sprintf("%s%s%s", group, sep, $i);
	  else
	    group = $i;
	  }
	  print "\\t" group
	}
$1 ~ /[Aa]lias | [Gg]roup/ {
	if ( NF == 3)
	  print $2 " = user alias = " $3;
	else {
	  group = ""
	  for (i = 3; i <= NF; i++) {
	    if (i == NF && $i == "\\\\") sep = ""
	    else        sep = ", "
	    if ($i == "\\\\") {
	      group = sprintf("%s,", group)
	      next_line = 1;
	    }
	    else if (length(group) > 0)
	      group = sprintf("%s%s%s", group, sep, $i);
	    else
	      group = $i;
	    }
	    print $2 " = group alias = " group;
	  }
	}

.ft 1
.fi
Note: this script is contained in the release as \f2utils/mailrc.awk\f1.
