Seeing how postfix could not access /etc/aliases I tried loosening the permissions, but still no luck:
[root@mercury ~]# chmod +rx /etc/aliases [root@mercury ~]# newaliases [root@mercury ~]# ls -l /etc/aliases -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1512 Apr 25 2005 /etc/aliases [root@mercury ~]# service postfix status master (pid 12412) is running... [root@mercury ~]# service postfix restart Shutting down postfix: [ OK ] Starting postfix: [ OK ] [root@mercury ~]# tail /var/log/maillog Oct 18 23:29:02 mercury postfix/master[12412]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd pid 12987 exit status 1 Oct 18 23:29:02 mercury postfix/master[12412]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling Oct 18 23:29:17 mercury postfix/postalias[13000]: fatal: usage: postalias [-Nfinoprsvw] [-c config_dir] [-d key] [-q key] [map_type:]file... Oct 18 23:29:52 mercury postfix/postfix-script: stopping the Postfix mail system Oct 18 23:29:52 mercury postfix/master[12412]: terminating on signal 15 Oct 18 23:29:52 mercury postfix/postfix-script: starting the Postfix mail system Oct 18 23:29:52 mercury postfix/master[13090]: daemon started -- version 2.3.3, configuration /etc/postfix Oct 18 23:30:00 mercury postfix/smtpd[13106]: fatal: open database /etc/aliases.db: No such file or directory Oct 18 23:30:01 mercury postfix/master[13090]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd pid 13106 exit status 1 Oct 18 23:30:01 mercury postfix/master[13090]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling [root@mercury ~]# date Mon Oct 18 23:30:08 CEST 2010 [root@mercury ~]#