*BSD News Article 10046


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From: pbd@runyon.cim.cdc.com (Paul Dokas)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Does aliases work?
Keywords: aliases newaliases
Message-ID: <51549@shamash.cdc.com>
Date: 18 Jan 93 15:54:21 GMT
References: <C0zF9t.Jzv@cscns.com>
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In article <C0zF9t.Jzv@cscns.com>, scottm@cscns.com (Scott McKinsey) writes:
|> After creating /etc/aliases and running newaliases, trying to send mail
|> to that alias doesn't work.  It comes back with something like
|> 'alias not found' or some such.  The alias.db was created.
|> 
|> Anybody got a clue?

Well, aliases work up to a point.

I discovered that sendmail wouldn't create an alias database if I used more than
70-80 aliases.  When I did a 'sendmail -bi' it would get a segmentation fault
or bus error (can't remember which) when handling around the 75th alias.

I built a new sendmail with debugging and found that it was dying in the db code
in libc.  So after RTFM (and a couple articles on the db code) I went in and
figured out what exactly was going on.

It seems that the db code was not splitting a page correctly.  It was leaving
bogus values in some structure, which later caused the error.

At about this time I was told that the db code in net2 is a piece of junk, and
that there was a better version available.  So I ftped it over and indeed, it
is much better (btree, hash, recno, mpool and ndbm all from BSD 4.4).  But, although
better, it is not quite compatible with the db code in libc (some significant
#defines have changed).

So, I was going to replace the db code in libc with this new stuff.  Then I would
have to rewrite all programs and libraries that need the db code.  But I don't
have the time.

So, if any adventurous souls want to also get the new db code and do all
of the porting (sendmail, kvm_sym, etc) then e-mail me and I'll tell you
where to get it.
-- 
#include <std.disclaimer>
#define FULL_NAME                          "Paul Dokas"
#define EMAIL                              "pbd@runyon.cim.cdc.com"
/*            Just remember, you *WILL* die someday.             */