Ownership of files executed through Mail aliases file

[jk31214]

I'm trying to meet some system security requirments for my 11i v2 box, but I'm having trouble determining one requirement.

"Files executed through a mail aliases file must be owned by root and must reside within a directory owned and writable only by root"

Does this mean that only root should be listed after the : for each alias in /etc/mail/aliases ?

[Matti_Kurkela]

I think it means: "if you have mail aliases that cause the mail to be piped to programs or scripts, those programs must be owned by root and located in a directory owned & writable by root only." (Yes, you can use aliases to pipe incoming mail to programs or scripts!)

For example, if you have an alias like this: (example from chapter 24.4, Special Aliases of the 2nd edition of Sendmail by O'Reilly)

mail-errors: "|/etc/mail/filter postmaster"

 ... then you must verify that /etc/mail/filter is owned by root and /etc/mail is owned and writable by root only.

If you don't have any executable aliases (the default /etc/mail/aliases certainly does not have any), then you don't have to do anything to comply with this requirement.