WHAT IS AN ALIAS?
The Nameserver contains entries for all staff, faculty, and students at the University. Each one of these people is identified by a special name, the alias. No two people have the same alias; therefore, a person's alias uniquely identifies him or her. This is the most important thing to remember about aliases: an alias is always enough information to identify a person in the Nameserver database.

A person's alias is usually formed by combining his or her first initial, a hyphen, and complete last name. For example, "Paul B. Pomes" has an alias of "p-pomes". Some people share the same first initial and last name; these people typically have a number added to the ends of their aliases, so that their aliases remain unique. For example, "John Doe" might have an alias of "j-doe1", and "Jane Doe" might have an alias of "j-doe2". It is possible for the owner of a ph entry to change his or her alias by logging into ph and using the "edit" or "make" command; thus, some people have aliases that do not follow the conventions just described, such as the alias "SueG".

WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF AN ALIAS?
Aliases serve two functions. First, they are used as "login names" for the Nameserver. If you wish to make changes to your Nameserver entry, you must first tell ph your alias so that it knows who is trying to log in. Second, they can be used as a convenient means of sending a person electronic mail. Instead of sending mail to a person's specific e-mail address, you can send mail to "ph-alias@uiuc.edu", where ph-alias is the person's alias. For example, you could send mail to "p-pomes@uiuc.edu", and the mail would be delivered to Paul Pomes.

Using alias-based addresses to send mail has a couple of advantages over using specific e-mail addresses: 1) alias-based addresses are often shorter and much easier to remember than specific e-mail addresses; and 2) the alias of a user never changes (unless the owner of the ph entry deliberately modifies his or her alias), whereas it is quite common for the specific address at which a person receives electronic mail to change. By keeping the "email" field in your ph entry up to date and encouraging friends and colleagues to use your alias-based address rather than your specific e-mail address, your electronic mail will always be delivered to your current address, eliminating the need to notify people if your specific e-mail address should change. For this reason, its a good idea to use your alias-based address on business cards and other printed or electronic media that advertise your e-mail address. See the ph help for "email" and "e-mail" for further information on the Nameserver and e-mail addresses.

HOW DO I FIND AN ALIAS?
Ph prints aliases by default when you do a lookup. The manner in which it prints them is somewhat confusing, however, and bears some explanation. Here is an sample ph query that will help:

% ph john doe

name: doe john
office_phone: 333-3333
office_address: 194 DCL, MC 256

     department: computing services office
       email to: j-doe@uiuc.edu (doe@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu)

By default, ph combines the contents of the "alias" and "email" fields into a single line or pseudo-field called "email to". The alias is the first thing in the "email to" line, before the "@uiuc.edu". In the above example, the alias is "j-doe".

A more direct way to find an alias is to specify the fields you want to see by using a "return clause" in the query. Only fields that follow the word "return" will be displayed, as shown below:

% ph john doe return name alias

           name: doe john
          alias: j-doe

SEE ALSO: login, email, e-mail, introduction, edit, make, alias