newalias permissions problem

[Richard E Miles]

I noticed in my logwatch that newaliases could not create the /etc/aliases.db
because of permission problems. I tried newaliases at root and got this message:

hash map "Alias0": unsafe map file /etc/aliases.db: Permission denied
WARNING: cannot open alias database /etc/aliases
Cannot create database for alias file /etc/aliases

I checked the permissions on these files:
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1526 Jun 15 16:40 /etc/aliases
-rw-r-----  1 smmsp smmsp 12288 Jun 19 10:43 /etc/aliases.db

I see that the owner and group are smmsp on /etc/aliases/db. Is this right?
Why am i getting these messages?

-- 
Richard E Miles
Federal Way Wa. USA
Registered linux user 46097