ALIs
kommt nochMailinglisten und Majordomo
Einleitung
Hier wird eine kurze Einführung in Mailinglisten und deren Realisierung am LRZ durch das Programm "Majordomo" gegeben. Mehr Details findet man:
- in englischer Sprache in der Man-Page des Programmautors (die nicht mit dem man-Kommando abrufbar ist, da Majordomo nicht auf einem für Benutzer zugänglichen Rechner läuft)
- in englischer Sprache in einem unveränderten Abdruck der Information, die der Programmautor für Listenverwalter vorbereitet hat
- in einem Formular in deutscher Sprache, mit dem man die Einrichtung einer Liste beim LRZ beantragen kann.
Die hier vorgestellten Möglichkeiten sind nicht dazu gedacht, daß man in der Art von Postwurfsendungen nichtsahnende Email-Benutzer mit Informationen belästigt, die der Absender aus irgendwelchen meist kommerziellen oder weltanschaulichen Gründen für besonders wichtig und interessant hält. Solcher Mißbrauch wird vom LRZ nicht unterstützt. Außerdem erweist sich diese Art von "Werbung", mit der lediglich das völlige Fehlen zivilisierter Manieren beim Absender demonstriert wird, regelmäßig als eher kontraproduktiv.
Email-Verteilerlisten - ganz allgemein
Häufig kommt es vor, daß immer wieder elektronische Post an eine ganze Gruppe von Adressaten gesandt werden muß, so zum Beispiel an eine Mannschaft, die einen bestimmten Dienst betreut oder aber an alle Teilnehmer einer Diskussionsrunde. Man möchte dann nicht jedesmal jeden Adressaten einzeln aufführen müssen; manchmal kann man es auch gar nicht, weil man vielleicht gar nicht weiß, ob neue Interessenten dazugekommen sind. Hier bieten sich mehrere Wege an:
-
Wird die Liste nur von wenigen Absendern gebraucht, so ist es am einfachsten, diese benutzen die Listenfunktion eines Mailprogramms wie "pine" oder "Pegasus". Für den Email-Versand sieht die Post genauso aus wie bisher: sie hat mehrere Adressaten; der Absender mußte aber nur einen Namen angeben. Benutzen die Absender alle denselben Rechner, so läßt sich auch eine gemeinsam benutzte Adressenliste einrichten.
-
Enthält die Liste nur wenige Adressaten und ändert sich selten, so kann man auf einem Rechner einen Mail-Alias eintragen; man braucht dazu aber die root-Berechtigung. Der Versand geschieht dann so, daß zunächst ein einziger Brief an diese Alias-Adresse gesandt wird, der sich dann in mehrere Briefe aufspaltet. Prinzipiell könnte man dasselbe ohne root-Berechtigung mit Hilfe des forward-Mechanismus erreichen, wenn man zu diesem Zweck eine Benutzerkennung opfert. Vor solchen Basteleien wird aber gewarnt, weil die Folgen nur schwer abschätzbar sind, die sich ergeben, wenn Briefe als unzustellbar an den Verteiler zurückgesandt werden.
-
In allen übrigen Fällen, also bei vielen Absendern, vielen Adressaten oder sich häufig ändernder Liste, sollte man ein Listenverwaltungsprogramm wie "Majordomo" oder "Listserv" einsetzen. Die Autoren dieser Programme haben nicht nur an die häufigsten Konfigurationsprobleme gedacht, sondern oft auch zusätzliche Funktionen wie Zugangsbeschränkungen oder Archivierung eingebaut.
-
Wenn eine Email-Liste viele Abonnenten hat, d.h. mindestens etwa 500, und rege von vielen Absendern benutzt wird, kann man auch daran denken, sie in eine News-Gruppe umzuwandeln.
Archivierung von Beiträgen
Bei bekannteren Email-Verteilerlisten wird oft ein Archiv aller eingesandten Beiträge geführt und oft auch über eine Web-Schnittstelle der Allgemeinheit angeboten. Bevor man sich dazu entschließt, ein solches Archiv zu führen, sollte man sich ein paar Punkte klarmachen:
-
Ein Archiv ersetzt keine Dokumentation. Es ist verführerisch zu meinen, dass das gesamte Wissen der Teilnehmer, soweit es in Beiträgen zum Ausdruck kam, über das Archiv verfügbar ist. Was aber, wenn ein Beitrag sachliche Fehler enthält? In einem Archiv, das diesen Namen verdient, kann man nachträglich nichts mehr ändern, ohne den Inhalt zu verfälschen. Besser wäre es, eine Gruppe von Redakteuren zu finden, die die aufhebenswerten Beiträge zusammenstellen und sie nach Rücksprache mit den Autoren auf einem inhaltlich richtigen und aktuellen Stand halten.
-
Die Anlage eines Archivs darf für keinen Beteiligten überraschend sein. Wer einer begrenzten Anzahl von Leuten per E-Mail etwas mitteilt, will seinen Beitrag nicht unbedingt auf weltweit zugreifbaren Webseiten wiederfinden, und das über Suchmaschinen und WWW-Archive auch weltweit auffindbar und nicht mehr löschbar, selbst nachdem das ursprüngliche Archiv aufgelöst ist.
Egal, ob man Rechtsstreitigkeiten fürchtet oder sich nur dem zwischenmenschlichen Anstand verpflichtet weiß: es geht nicht an, Äußerungen anderer Menschen ohne deren Wissen und deren Zustimmung in Dossiers festzuhalten. Wenn Sie also ein Archiv führen wollen, tun Sie es bitte so, dass Sie mit den Persönlichkeitsrechten der Menschen, die an Ihre Liste schreiben, verantwortlich umgehen.
Das LRZ bietet keine Archive über WWW an, außer einigen wenigen, bei denen die Listenbetreiber gleichzeitig die einzigen Teilnehmer sind. Archive über die E-Mail-Schnittstelle von Majordomo lassen sich dagegen einrichten; ob das im Einzelfall notwendig oder sinnvoll ist, möge der jeweilige Listenverwalter entscheiden, der dann auch die Verantwortung dafür trägt.
Email-Verteilerlisten am LRZ
Am LRZ ist das Programm "Majordomo" installiert, das von allen Nutzern des LRZ dazu verwendet werden kann, Email-Verteilerlisten einzurichten. Bevor man sich dazu entschließt, sollte man schon geprüft haben, ob es eine der simpleren Varianten, besonders die erste, nicht auch tut, ob die Liste eine echte Chance hat, wirklich benutzt zu werden und ob sie auch eine Weile leben wird. Ist das der Fall, so kann man durch ein Formular die Einrichtung der Liste beantragen. Bei der Einrichtung und Löschung der Liste und bei wenigen besonderen Verwaltungsvorgängen muß das LRZ tätig werden. Das Eintragen und Austragen von Listenmitgliedern und die Festlegung der Regeln für die Listenbenutzung geschieht dagegen selbständig durch den Listeneigentümer; das ist in der Regel derjenige, der die Liste beantragt hat. Dieser muß dazu keine Benutzerkennung an den Rechnern des LRZ haben; alle Interaktion mit dem Programm Majordomo geschieht über Email.
Es sind also weder auf den Rechnern des LRZ noch sonst irgendwo neue Kommandos eingerichtet. Vielmehr erteilt sowohl der Listeneigentümer als auch jedermann sonst (z.B. jemand, der sich auf eine Liste setzen oder setzen lassen will) dem Programm Majordomo Kommandos per Email an majordomo@lists.lrz-muenchen.de. In angemessener Zeit wird Majordomo dann ebenfalls per Email antworten, um die Ausführung oder die Ablehnung des Kommandos mitzuteilen. Hinter dieser Email-Adresse verbirgt sich also nur ein Programm, so daß es sinnlos ist, andere Mitteilungen als solche Kommandos einzusenden.
Die wichtigsten Kommandos sind:
- subscribe list
um sich auf die Liste list zu setzen - unsubscribe list
um sich von der Liste list wieder zu entfernen - help
um eine Beschreibung aller Kommandos zugesandt zu bekommen.
Die Liste aller Kommandos findet sich in der Man-Page.
Will man nicht mit dem Majordomo-Programm, sondern mit einem LRZ-Mitarbeiter korrespondieren, der sich um Majordomo kümmert, so benutzt man die Email-Adresse majordomo-admin@lrz-muenchen.de .
Majordomo Man-Page
- NAME
- Majordomo - manage multiple mailing lists
- SYNOPSIS
- Majordomo Version 1.94.3
- DESCRIPTION
- Majordomo is a perl script which automates the management of Internet mailing lists. It is executed via electronic mail; users send e-mail to Majordomo with instructions in the body of the message, and the perl script performs the requested actions and responds with the results. Any text in the "Subject:" line is ignored.
- COMMANDS
- Majordomo understands the following commands (arguments in "[]" are optional):
-
- subscribe list [address]
- Subscribe yourself (or address if specified) to the named list.
- unsubscribe list [address]
- Unsubscribe yourself (or address if specified) from the named list. If list is ``*'' (an asterisk), unsubscribe from all lists on this Majordomo server.
- auth special-word subscribe list address
- If the list subscribe policy setting includes +confirm, Majordomo will ask for confirmation before a subscription is approved. The conformation request will show the special-word to send with auth .
- get list file
- Get the file related to list.
- index list
- Return an index of the files you can get associated with list.
- which [address]
- Find out to which lists you (or address if specified) are subscribed.
- who list
- Find out who is on the named list.
- info list
- Retrieve the general introductory information for the named list.
- intro list
- Retrieve the introductory message sent to new users of list. Non-subscribers may not be able to retrieve this.
- lists
- Show the lists served by this Majordomo server. It will also show a 50 character list description if one has been provided.
- help
- Retrieve an informational message, a brief synopsis of the user portion of this manual page.
- end
- Stop processing commands (useful if your mailer adds a signature).
- A command may be split across multiple lines if all of the lines in the command except the last end with a backslash "\".
-
- In addition, the owner of the list can issue the following commands:
- approve password subscribe list address
- Instruct Majordomo to add address to list. The password is required to authenticate the list owner. This is very weak authentication as the password is transmitted in the clear in an e-mail message. No claims are made that it will provide anything other than rudimentary protection against abuse of the Majordomo server.
- approve password unsubscribe list address
- Instruct Majordomo to delete address from list. The password is required to authenticate the list owner. See the comments above regarding the password.
- newinfo list password
- Update the informational message for list with the text which follows on subsequent lines. No formatting of the message occurs, so the list owner should be careful to constrain the message to eighty columns. Majordomo will include everything up to the string EOF or to the end of the mail message, whichever comes first. This is useful in case the owner wants to verify the new message immediately, e.g.,
-
To: majordomo newinfo list password This is new information for the "list" list. EOF info list - This will simultaneously update the information for the list, and then retrieve it for verification. Note that blank lines are preserved in the message.
- newintro list password
- Similar to newinfo , but updates the (optional) introductory message sent to new list subscribers.
- passwd list old-password new-password
- Replace the password for list with new-password.
- config list password
- retrieve a self-documenting configuration file for the list list. The password can be the password contained in the file <listname>.passwd or the admin_password in the configuration file.
- newconfig list password
- Validates and installs a new configuration file. The config file includes everything up to the string EOF or to the end of the mail message, whichever comes first. The config file is expected to be a complete config file as returned by the "config" command. Incremental changing of the config file is not yet supported. As soon as the config file is validated and installed its settings are available for use. This is useful to remember if you have multiple commands in your mail message since they will be subject to the settings of the new config file. If there is an error in the config file (incorrect value...), the config file will not be accepted and the error message identifying the problem line(s) will be returned to the sender. Note that only the errors are returned to the sender not the entire config file.
- writeconfig list password
- Write a new config in standard form. All of the config file documentation is optional. Only the keywords and values are necessary. If a config file, stripped of all comments is installed using newconfig, that is what is returned by config. Writeconfig forces a rewrite of the config file with all comments and default values in place. It is useful to use after an upgrade of majordomo since it will add the new keywords for people to change. It also updates the documentation in the file if that has changed.
- mkdigest digest-list-name [outgoing-address] password
- This will force a digest for the specified list to be created. It is most useful if you don't have an account on the machine that handles the digest for your list. The optional outgoing-address will override the default address, listname-outgoing, for distributing the digests; this is usually done for security.
- CONFIGURATION
- (Note that this section has not been updated to majordomo version 1.90). Majordomo supports open and closed lists. An open list is one to which anyone can subscribe themselves. A subscription request sent to Majordomo for a closed list is forwarded to the owner of the list for approval. If a user tries to subscribe an address which is different from their own (for example, a local list exploder), Majordomo will forward the request to the list owner for approval, regardless of the open or closed status of the list.
- Majordomo depends on the existence of certain system mail aliases. The first three are for running the perl script on incoming e-mail and specifying the responsible person in charge of the server:
-
majordomo: "|/usr/local/mail/majordomo/wrapper majordomo" majordomo-owner: brent owner-majordomo: brent - These next few aliases are for a list called "sample":
-
sample: :include:/usr/local/mail/lists/sample owner-sample: sample-owner sample-request: "|/usr/local/mail/majordomo/wrapper request-answer sample" owner-sample-request: sample-owner sample-owner: brent sample-approval: brent - FILES
- /etc/majordomo.cf
/usr/local/lib/mail/majordomo/ - BUGS
- This man page has not been fully updated to conform to majordomo 1.90.
- AUTHORS
- Majordomo and most of the ancillary perl code was written by Brent Chapman, <brent@GreatCircle.COM>. The latest version of the code is available by anonymous FTP from FTP.GreatCircle.COM, in directory pub/majordomo. This man page was written by Jim Duncan, <jim@math.psu.edu>. Minimal update of the man page by John Rouillard <rouilj@cs.umb.edu>.
Infos fuer Listeneigentuemer (engl.)
Majordomo address: # Majordomo@lists.lrz-muenchen.de
Majordomo-Owner address:# Majordomo-Owner@lists.lrz-muenchen.de
Majordomo Version: # 1.94.3
List Name: # ListName
Is resend used: # yes
Is the list archived: # yes/no
List posting address: # ListName@lists.lrz-muenchen.de
List request address: # ListName-Request@lists.lrz-muenchen.de
List password: # whatever
Digest list name: # ListName-digest
Digest list password: # whatever
Your mailing list has been established. It is being served by an
automated mailing list manager that responds to commands emailed to
the "Majordomo address" listed above. This message has all the details
of how to manage your list remotely using Majordomo. If you have any
questions, refer them to the Majordomo-Owner address listed above.
******
There's a lot of info here, so please read this completely and
carefully, and save it for future reference. If you have any questions,
you should send them to the Majordomo-Owner address above.
******
Your list-owner password is shown above. Keep track of this; you'll
need it later. Instructions for changing your password are below.
As soon as possible, please issue a "newinfo" command for your
list (see below) to create the file that someone will receive when
they join or ask about your list.
You can issue a "who" command for your list to see who's already on your
list. You may or may not already be subscribed to your own list.
================
The Gory Details
================
Your mailing list is managed by an automated mailing list management
program called Majordomo. Majordomo should free you from dealing
with most of the administrivia usually associated with running mailing
lists (adding users, dropping users, etc.).
To submit something to your list, you (or anybody else) should simply
mail it to the list posting address shown at the top of this file.
To be added to your list, a user simply sends a message to majordomo.
There are two ways to do it:
address-- To: ListName-request@FooBar.COM
message-- subscribe
OR
address-- To: majordomo@FooBar.COM
message-- subscribe ListName
Majordomo understands several commands, and is not limited to a single
command per message (it will process commands until reaching
end-of-message or the command "end"). The command "help" will tell
you about all the other commands.
Actually, it won't tell you about _all_ the other commands that
Majordomo understands. There are several commands there for use by
list owners such as yourself, which are not advertised to the public.
All of these commands are password-protected on a list-by-list basis,
but anyone with a valid list/password combination can invoke these
commands. This is not exactly high-tech security, but it's more
intended to keep annoyance to a minimum than to be foolproof.
The "documented" commands which Majordomo understands and which are
for everyone to use are:
subscribe <list> [<address>]
unsubscribe <list> [<address>]
which [<address>]
who <list>
info <list>
index <list>
get <list>
lists
help
end
You can get detailed explanations of all of these by asking for "help"
from Majordomo (send a message containing just the word "help" as the
message text to majordomo@FooBar.COM).
The "undocumented" commands for use by list owners are:
approve <passwd> {subscribe|unsubscribe} <list> [<address>]
This is so that you can approve subscription or unsubscription
actions that need approval by the list owner. Note that this
is just a standard "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" command prefixed
with "approve <password>" (where you substitute the password for
your list, which is listed above, for "<password>").
approve <passwd> who <list>
This allows you to get the list of addresses for your
anonymous list. Without the password, even the list owner can
not see who is on the list.
passwd <list> <old_passwd> <new_passwd>
This is so you can change the password for your list, if you desire.
newintro <list> <password>
This is so that you can replace the information file that people
get when they do "intro <list>" or "subscribe <list>". It reads
everything after the "newintro" command to end-of-message or the
word "EOF" on a line by itself as the new intro for the list.
newinfo <list> <password>
This replaces the information file that people get when they do
"info <list>". (This file is also sent by "subscribe <list>" if
the intro file doesn't exist.) This reads everything after the
"newinfo" command to end-of-message or the word "EOF" on a line
by itself as the new info for the list.
config <list> <password>
Retrieves a self-documenting configuration file for
the list <list>. The <password> can be the password
contained in the file <list>.passwd or the
admin_password in the configuration file.
newconfig <list> <password>
Validates and installs a new configuration file. It reads
everything after the "newconfig" command to end-of-message or
the word "EOF" on a line by itself as the new info for the
list. The config file is expected to be a complete config
file as returned by "config". Incremental changing of the
config file is not yet supported. As soon as the config file
is validated and installed its settings are available for
use. This is useful to remember if you have multiple commands
in your mail message since they will be subject to the
settings of the new config file. If there is an error in the
config file (incorrect value...), the config file will not be
accepted and the error message identifying the problem line(s)
will be returned to the sender. Note that only the error
messages are returned to the sender not the entire config
file, so it would be a good idea to keep a copy of your
outgoing email message.
writeconfig <list> <password>
Write a new config file in standard form. Writeconfig forces a
rewrite of the config file with all default values in place (or
current values if the config file already exists). It is
useful to use after an upgrade of majordomo since it will add
the new keywords for people to change. It also updates the
documentation in the file if that has changed.
mkdigest <digest list name> <password>
mkdigest <digest list name> <digest outgoing alias> <password>
Generate a digest immediately without waiting to reach the
maxlength given in the config file. The first form will cause the
digest to be sent to an alias found by appending "-outgoing" to the
digest list name. Because this can be a security concern, the
second form allows specification of the name of the alias that the
outgoing digest will be sent to.
Configuring Your List
=====================
You should retrieve the configuration file for your list. To do this,
send an email message to the majordomo address listed at the top of
this form. The contents of this message should be:
config <list> <List password>
Where <list> <List password> are given at the top of the form. You
will receive a config file that can be used to change the operation of
your list. If the information at the top of this form shows that
resend is being used, you want to configure the majordomo and resend
subsystems. Otherwise you only have to configure those items that are
associated with the majordomo system.
The configuration file is meant to be self documenting. Once you have
completed all of the changes to the config file, You should use the
newconfig command (described above) to put a new configuration file in
place.
If you have a digest version of your list, you should retrieve the
config file for the digest as well using:
config <Digest List Name> <Digest list password>
and configure the parameters for the digest and majordomo subsystems.
Regular Expressions
===================
For some of the configuration options, a rudimentary knowledge of perl
style regular expressions will help you run Majordomo through its
tricks. A regular expression is a concise way of expressing a pattern
in a series of characters. The full power of regular expressions can
make some difficult tasks quite easy, but we will only brush the
surface here.
The character / is used to mark the beginning and end of a regular
expression. Letters and numbers stand for themselves. Many of the
other characters are symbolic. Some commonly used ones are:
\@ the `@' found in nearly all addresses; it must be preceeded by a
backslash in later versions of perl to avoid errors
. (period) any character
* previous character, zero or more times; note especially...
.* any character, zero or more times
+ previous character, one or more times; so for example...
a+ letter "a", one or more times
\ next character stands for itself; so for example...
\. literally a period, not meaning "any character"
^ beginning of the string; so for example...
^a a string beginning with letter "a"
$ end of the string; so for example...
a$ a string ending with letter "a"
Example 1.
/cs\.umb\.edu/
Notice the periods are preceded by a backslash to make them be
literally periods. This matches any string containing cs.umb.edu
such as:
cs.umb.edu
foo.cs.umb.edu
user@foo.cs.umb.edu
users%foo.cs.umb.edu@greatcircle.com
Example 2.
/rouilj\@.*cs\.umb\.edu/
The `@' has special meaning to later versions of perl and must be prefixed
with a backslash to avoid errors. The string ".*" means "any character,
zero or more times". So this matches:
rouilj@cs.umb.edu
rouilj@terminus.cs.umb.edu
arouilj@terminus.cs.umb.edu@greatcircle.com
but it doesn't match
rouilj@umb.edu
brent@cs.umb.edu
Example 3.
/^rouilj\@.*cs\.umb\.edu$/
This is similar to Example 2, and matches the same first two strings:
rouilj@cs.umb.edu
rouilj@terminus.cs.umb.edu
but it doesn't match
arouilj@terminus.cs.umb.edu@greatcircle.com
because the regular expression says the string has to begin with
letter "r" and end with letter "u", by using the ^ and $ symbols, and
neither of those is true for arouilj@terminus.cs.umb.edu@greatcircle.com.
Example 4.
/.*/
This is the regular expression that matches anything.
Example 5.
/.\*rouilj/
Here the * is preceded by a \, so it refers literally to an asterisk
character and not the symbolic meaning "zero or more times". The . still
has its symbolic meaning of "any one character", so it would match for
example
a*rouilj
s*rouilj
It would not match this because the . by itself implies one character:
*rouilj
Normally all matches are case sensitive; you can make any match case
insensitive by appending an `i' to the end of the expression.
Example 6.
/aol\.com/i
This would match aol.com, AOL.com, AoL.cOm, etc. Removing the `i':
/aol\.com/
would match aol.com but not AOL.com or any other capitalization.
To be on the safe side put a \ in front of any characters in the
regular expressions that are not numbers or letters. In order to put
a / into the regular expression, the same rule holds: precede it
with a \. Thus, with \ in front of the / and = characters, this
/\/CO\=US/
matches /CO=US and may be a useful regular expression to those of you
who need to deal with X.400 addresses that contain / characters.
Approval
========
When Majordomo requests your approval for something, it sends you a
message that includes a template of the approval message; if you concur,
you simply need to replace "PASSWORD" in the template with your list
password, and send the template line back to Majordomo.
The requests for approval that Majordomo generates all start with
"APPROVE" in the "Subject:" line.
You aren't limited to approving only things to Majordomo requests
approval for. You can approve any "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" request,
regardless of whether Majordomo has requested this approval, with an
"approve" command. Thus, you can subscribe or unsubscribe people from
your list without them having to send anything to Majordomo; just
send an appropriate "approve PASSWORD subscribe LIST ADDRESS" or
"approve PASSWORD unsubscribe LIST ADDRESS" command off to Majordomo.
If you use a mailer which is capable of sending a message to an external
program, can run perl and can run sendmail or a program capable of behaving
like it for the purposes of sending mail, then all you have to do is send
the entire approval message (including all of the headers, which are very
important and which are automatically removed by some mailers unless
configured to do otherwise) to the approve script. Approve looks for a
file called ".majordomo" in your home directory to find the approval
password for your list. The format of this file is given in the following
excerpt from the approve manual page:
approve assumes that the approve password for each list is
the same as the approval password used by resend, and that
this password is stored in a file called .majordomo in the
user's home directory. The file has the following format:
this-list passwd1 Majordomo@This.COM
other-list passwd2 Majordomo@Other.GOV
The first column specifies the name of the mailing list, the
second column specifies the list-owner's password for the
given list, and the third column specifies the e-mail
address of the associated Majordomo server. It is assumed
that the value in the third column is an Internet-style
"something@somewhere" address, and that postings for "List"
should be sent to "List@somewhere". Since this file only
needs to be read by the user, it should be mode 600 to pro-
tect the passwords.
If you have the necessary environment for running the approve script,
contact the Majordomo owner at the site that serves your list and request
it.
Bounced Messages
================
Majordomo may bounce certain messages that people attempt to post to your
mailing list. These messages may be bounced because they appear to be
administrative requests (i.e., someone mailed a request to subscribe or
unsubscribe to the posting address rather than to Majordomo or to the
-request address), because they are too long, because they match strings
that you or the list server owner has defined as being "taboo", or for any
of a number of other reasons, many of which may seem annoying but have been
decided upon as being useful in stopping unwanted messages from making it
onto your list. (These are often configurable, so if you find a check to
be too restrictive you can generally turn it off.) Note also that the
bounces mentioned here are not the same as the errors that will be returned
by various mail servers when addresses or hosts are unreachable. Those are
generally referred to as bounces, also; sorry for the confusion.
Majordomo will forward these messages to you in another message whose
subject line begins with the word "BOUNCE"; the subject line will also
indicate the name of the list the message was bounced from (in case you
manage more than one list) and the reason the message was bounced.
If you decide that the message is OK and should not have been bounced, then
you can cause Majordomo to post it anyway by sending the message back to
the posting address (NOT to the Majordomo address) with a special
"Approved: password" header. There are two ways to do this; the method you
use depends on your having access to and the ability to run the approve
script mentioned in the previous section. If you can run approve it is
recommended that you do so, as this method is much less prone to errors and
will reduce the time you spend moderating your list.
If you cannot run the approve script, you can manually approve the
message. To do so, follow the following directions _exactly_:
1) Save the original message (the body of the message you received
from Majordomo) in a file. The portion you need will consist of
the headers of the original message, followed by a single blank
line, followed by the text of the original message. You do not
need to include any of the headers of the message which contained
the original message. Here's a quick example:
From: majordomo@list.server \
To: your-list-approval@list.server | Don't want these headers
Subject: BOUNCE: taboo_header found /
- Blank line
>From list-member@her.site date \
Received: some long routing info | Headers of original message;
From: list-member@her.site | You want these. It's OK if you
To: your-list@list.server | don't have the first line.
Subject: Just a message /
- Blank line, you _must_ have this!
Hello. I'm just writing to \
consume some bandwidth and | Message body; include all of
take up space in your mail | this.
spool! /
Basically you want everything after (and not including) the first
blank line.
2) Edit the file to insert a line that says "Approved: password" (where
"password" is the password for your list) at the top, before the
original message, with absolutely no intervening space:
Approved: sekrit
>From list-member@her.site date
Received: some long routing info
From: list-member@her.site
To: your-list@list.server
Subject: Just a message
Hello. I'm just writing to
consume some bandwidth and
take up space in your mail
spool!
3) Send this edited file back to the posting address for your list (NOT
to Majordomo). You should make sure that your mailer doesn't try
to do anything like include your prepared mail as an attachment,
encode it somehow, indent every line, or add anything extra to the
beginning or end of the message. There are mailers that will do
pretty horrible things to messages before they are sent; you should
take care that you aren't using one or, if you are, you have it
configured to pass your text on unadulterated.
This time around, Majordomo will notice the "Approved:" line and check it
against your list password. If it matches, Majordomo will strip off the
header of your message and the "Approved:" line (leaving just the original
message), and send the original message on through.
Even your own messages bay be bounced to you for approval. To send out your
own message without server checks (perhaps you know it contains something
the list server will complain about) you can pre-approve the message one of
the two following ways:
If you're using a mailer that can add additional headers, add one like the
following:
Approved: sekrit
It's precise location within the headers is not important.
If your mailer does not allow you to add additional headers, you can add
the line:
Approved: sekrit
as the first line of the message, followed by a blank line (which is
required for your message to be sent properly) followed by the text of your
message. The Approved: line and one following blank line will be deleted
and the message will be passed without being checked. The blank line is
important because it is used to differentiate between a pre-approval and the
approval of a bounced message, outlined above.
Moderation
==========
If your list is moderated, (the moderate parameter in the config
file is yes) then messages without an "Approved:" line are bounced,
just as described above. To cause them to be posted to the list, you
add a valid "Approved:" line and send them back, just as described
above.
Again, the "approve" program automates all this if you wish to use it. You
can also use the above pre-approval method to send your own messages
without them being bounced back to you.
If you have any questions about all of this, send them to the Majordomo-Owner
address shown at the top of this file.
Restricting Posting
===================
An easier alternative to moderation is to restrict who can post to the
list, which can be done with the restrict_post configuration variable.
The variable requires a file listing the people who can post.
The most common case is to limit posting to people who are subscribed
to the list. This keeps out advertisements and other junk mail sent
by non-subscribers. Since majordomo already has a file of subscribers,
you don't need to create and maintain a file, so it's easy to set.
Change the restrict_post line to this, where <listname> is the name of
your list:
restrict_post = <listname>
If you want to restrict posting to any other set of people, you'll
need to ask majordomo-owner for help. Unfortunately there's no way to
tell majordomo about keeping another file of people who are allowed to
post, so a file would have to be set in place "by hand". Some future
release of majordomo may provide a way to do this automatically.
Archive
=======
Archiving has to be set or unset by the system administrators reached
at majordomo-owner@FooBar.COM. It is not the default but must be
requested. Here is what can be done.
Archive files can be split by years, months, or days. This means all
mail to the list for one of those periods of time will be collected
into one archive file. People who want to get archived mail will need
to get one such file as a unit.
We are running an indexer program nightly. It produces two index files
that subscribers can get: CONTENTS lists what subject lines are in each
archive file; TOPICS lists what archive files contain each subject.
Subscribers use the "get" command to see files in the archives. Examples:
get ListName CONTENTS # gets the CONTENTS file
get ListName ListName.9507 # gets the July 1995 archive file
Access to archives is controlled by the get_access variable in the
config file. The default "list" means they must be subscribers to get
archived files.
Subscribers can also get a list of filenames and dates in the archive
by sending an "index" command. Example:
index ListName
This is controlled by the config file variable index_access similarly.
Notes on archiving.
- It's possible for the archive to contain files besides the indexes
and the archive files of messages. However, majordomo offers no
method for you to put them there. In an unusual case you can ask
majordomo-owner to put a file there for you.
- Archiving could be accomplished by directing a copy of messages to
some other place besides the majordomo archive. Ask, if you have
something in mind.
Digest
=======
A digest version of a list is a way to reduce the number of messages sent
from Majordomo to subscribers. Normally, each message to the list is
remailed to all the subscribers, but with a digest, several messages are
collected into a batch and then sent together as one message. This does
not reduce the total size too much, although there are fewer mail header
lines-- the main purpose is to reduce the number of separate messages.
This actually helps the mail systems at both ends, and may help subscribers
reduce clutter in their mailboxes.
A Majordomo digest is actually a separate mailing list. The digest of
ListName would normally be called ListName-digest.
People subscribe independently to ListName and ListName-digest.
Very likely no one would want to be on both lists. To change between
ListName and ListName-digest, a subscriber needs to unsubscribe
from one list and subscribe to the other. This can be done with one
message to majordomo@FooBar.COM with two command lines in it, e.g.:
unsubscribe ListName
subscribe ListName-digest
Remember that ListName-digest will have its own information file and
configuration file. Change them, if you want to, when you change the
same files for ListName.
Majordomo will send a digest automatically when the size of the digest
exceeds the size given as max_length in the configuration file of the
digest list. The default max_length is 40 K. Thus the interval
between digests can vary, but they will be of a predictable size.
The listowner can also tell Majordomo to make a digest (meaning, compile
and send out a digest) by sending the command mkdigest at any time:
mkdigest ListName-digest password
A daily digest (or for some other time period) could be achieved by
setting the max_length high enough so as not to be reached normally in
a day, and then setting up a job to run daily that sends mail to
Majordomo with the mkdigest command. On a unix system, give the
commands "man crontab" and "man 5 crontab" at the shell for an
explanation of such jobs, or ask majordomo-owner for help.
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