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expn

Back in the days before spammers and worms, mail servers were a lot friendlier. In particular, most of them were willing to tell you what aliases expanded into using the EXPN command.

This ancient perl4 program would recursively expand aliases, going from server to server to fully expand a mail address.

Current status: useless
Honerable mentions: included in the sendmail distribution.
Last update: 2001


EXPN(1)                                                                EXPN(1)

NAME
       expn - recursively expand mail aliases

SYNOPSIS
       expn [-a] [-v] [-w] [-d] [-1] user[@hostname] [user[@hostname]]...
             --   --   --   --   --  ----  --------   ----  --------

DESCRIPTION
       expn  will  use the SMTP expn and vrfy commands to expand mail aliases.
       It will first look up the addresses you provide on  the  command  line.
       If those expand into addresses on other systems, it will connect to the
       other systems and expand again.  It will keep doing this until no  fur-
       ther expansion is possible.

OPTIONS
       The  default  output of expn can contain many lines which are not valid
       email addresses.  With the -aa flag, only  expansions  that  result  in
                                  ---
       legal  addresses  are  used.   Since many mailing lists have an illegal
       address or two, the single -a, address, flag specifies that a few ille-
                                  --
       gal  addresses  can be mixed into the results.   More -a flags vary the
                                                             --
       ratio.  Read the source to track down the formula.  With the -a option,
                                                                    --
       you  should  be able to construct a new mailing list out of an existing
       one.

       If you wish to limit the number of levels deep that expn  will  recurse
       as  it  traces addresses, use the -1 option.  For each -1 another level
                                         --                   --
       will be traversed.  So, -111 will traverse no more  than  three  levels
                               ----
       deep.

       The  normal  mode  of  operation  for  expn  is  to  do all of its work
       silently.  The following options make it more verbose.  It is not  nec-
       essary  to make it verbose to see what it is doing because as it works,
       it changes its argv[0] variable to reflect its  current  activity.   To
       see  how  it is expanding things, the -v, verbose, flag will cause expn
                                             --
       to show each address before and after translation as it works.  The -w,
                                                                           --
       watch, flag will cause expn to show you its conversations with the mail
       daemons.  Finally, the -d, debug, flag will expose many  of  the  inner
                              --
       workings so that it is possible to eliminate bugs.

ENVIRONMENT
       No enviroment variables are used.

FILES
       /tmp/expn$$ temporary file used as input to nslookup.
SEE ALSO
       aliases(5), sendmail(8), nslookup(8), RFC 823, and RFC 1123.
BUGS
       Not  all  mail daemons will implement expn or vrfy.  It is not possible
       to verify addresses that are served by such daemons.
       When attempting to connect to a system to verify an address, expn  only
       tries one IP address.  Most mail daemons will try harder.
       It  is  assumed  that  you  are  running  domain  names  and  that  the
       nslookup(8) program is available.  If not, expn will  not  be  able  to
       verify  many  addresses.  It will also pause for a long time unless you
       change the code where it says $have nslookup = 1 to read $have nslookup
                                     -------------- - -         --------------
       = 0.
       - -
       Lastly, expn does not handle every valid address.  If you have an exam-
       ple, please submit a bug report.
CREDITS
       In 1986 or so, Jon Broome wrote a program of the  same  name  that  did
       about the same thing.  It has since suffered bit rot and Jon Broome has
       dropped off the face of the earth!  (Jon, if you are out there, drop me
       a line)
AVAILABILITY
       The  latest  version  of  expn  is  available  through anonymous ftp at
       ftp://ftp.idiom.com/pub/muir-programs/expn.
       ------------------------------------------
AUTHOR
       David Muir Sharnoff    
       ----- ---- --------    ----------------



Edition                     March 11, 1993                         EXPN(1)