My error postalias: fatal: open /etc/aliases.db: Permission denied

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Level 1

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My error postalias: fatal: open /etc/aliases.db: Permission denied

I updated my postfix aliases saved it then exited out. Entered newaliases and this is the error that i got. Logged in as super user. As far as I know nothing else has changed. Please help

Xserve, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on May 29, 2007 9:09 AM

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Answer 1

rhwalker

Level 3

589 points

May 29, 2007 9:42 AM in response to lakelandtech

Perhaps you have accidentally set the uchg flag, or perhaps your permissions are wrong. Should be:

mail:/etc admin$ ls -alo /private/etc/aliases.db
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 16384 Oct 11 2005 /private/etc/aliases.db

Russ

Xserve G5 2.0 GHz 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8) Apple Hardware RAID, ATTO UL4D, Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u

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Answer 2

May 29, 2007 10:08 AM in response to lakelandtech

(1) Just to confirm ... you did issue "postalias /etc/aliases" ... Yes?

(2) Check your permissions for both "etc" and "etc/aliases.db"

(3) If all looks well, you might want to try re-editing your aliases file and resaving, re-issuing "postalias /etc/aliases" and "newaliases" and then restart your server (not just mail services).

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Answer 3

lakelandtech Author

Level 1

0 points

May 29, 2007 10:51 AM in response to lakelandtech

The uchg flag is not set.

The permissions for the etc folder are:
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 11 Jul 29 2005 etc -> private/etc

The permissions for the aliases.db are:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 16384 May 8 08:39 /private/etc/aliases.db

I tried postaliases and basically got the same error.

I did restart the server when this first started.

Hope this helps in helping me.

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Answer 4

May 29, 2007 11:43 AM in response to lakelandtech

If you issue "ls -l /etc/alias*" do you get the following:

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 15 Mar 15 18:20 /etc/aliases -> postfix/aliases
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 16384 May 21 15:05 /etc/aliases.db

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Answer 5

pterobyte

Level 6

11,104 points

May 29, 2007 11:50 AM in response to lakelandtech

/etc/aliases is an alias for /etc/postfix/aliases

Try:
cd /etc/postfix
sudo newaliases
sudo postalias aliases
sudo postfix reload

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Answer 6

lakelandtech Author

Level 1

0 points

May 29, 2007 1:02 PM in response to pterobyte

sudo newaliases: gives me the same error

sudo postalias aliases: no error back to command line

sudo postfix reload: gave me refreshing the Postfix mail system

Thanks for the help keep them coming.

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Answer 7

pterobyte

Level 6

11,104 points

May 29, 2007 10:10 PM in response to lakelandtech

Delete /etc/aliases.db and try again.

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Answer 8

lakelandtech Author

Level 1

0 points

May 30, 2007 6:29 AM in response to lakelandtech

Deleted the aliases.db and everything is working again. Thanks for all the help. Learned some new things along the way. Once again thanks.

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