Wildcard Characters
The star (*) wildcard character matches any character string. The question mark (?) wildcard character matches any one character in a fixed position. All mail aliases are case-insensitive.

Mail aliases are used to map a mail userid to one or more mailboxes on the this mail server or internet mail addresses. In the example below, mail addressed to Tod.Sambar@sambar.com is redirected to the local tod mailbox. Typical uses for aliases include mapping firstname.lastname to a mail user's mailbox and/or addressing all the members of a group using a single name such as engineering.

The Fred.Sambar aliase below forwards mail to the null mailbox. The null mailbox is a "special" mailbox that results in the mail quietly being discarded without the sender being notified.

Mail fetcher aliases are exactly like regular mail aliases (above), except they only apply to the fetcher; outgoing mail is not affected by this alias. Fetcher aliases are necessary for mailing lists that come in without an identifiable user account. For example, mail received from sambarlist@skyweb.se is also addressed to sambarlist@skyweb.se, so there is no identifiable local mailbox. A Fetcher Alias can be used to indicate that sambarlist@skyweb.se should go into one or more local accounts, otherwise, it would go into the account identified by the Unknown Mailbox. (Note: Fetcher aliases are applied before standard aliases when retrieving mail via the fetcher.)

Mail "forwarding" operates much the same way as mail aliases do. The only difference is in the order of evaluation (aliases are evaluated first) and the requirement that the mailbox being forwarded exist. The "forward" entry below sends all mail destined for the mailbox tod to the internet address tod@altavista.net. Warning: If you inadvertently forward mail to an invalid mail address, all mail destined for the address will be bounced back to the client.