Mailing Lists

D9R said:
What is the email address of the list owner? I don't see where/how that's set initially.
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The list owner is defined initially as "[email protected]" where "list" is the name of the list.
Internally, owner-list is also aliased to list-owner; there's an interesting discussion of the history behind this discussed in the FAQ on the majordomo site (see my previous post to this thread).

both owner-list and list-owner are initially set to the user who owns the site, so if you're not reading email for the username you need to set up a forward for it to send it somewhere you will read it.

The only place list-owner and owner-list can be aliased to someone besides the site user is in the majordomo list.aliases file for the domain.

However that file is owned by majordom:mail, and is only readable by majordomo, so only someone with root access will be able to modify it.

Perhaps the DA team can create an easy way to change the list owner, but unless they do, you're stuck asking your reseller, who may need to ask the system owner. Some resellers and/or system owners may not be willing to do it for you.

Many changes are easier, though, and can be made through modification of the list's config file.

When you install a majordomo list, you're supposed to send a copy of list-owner-info (a majordomo file) to the list owner. DA doesn't do that. Until the DA team can get around to adding that to the panel, perhaps you'll want to read the list-owner info file at:

http://www.pitt.edu/~postman/lists/Doc/list-owner-info.html

or email me and ask me to send you a text-only version if you'd rather have that.

Note that either the one at the URL above, or the one from me, will be generic, and will not apply specifically to your list, so you'll have to use quite a bit of common sense in reading it.

And there will be things you can't do, considering how the DA control panel implements majordomo, and the limitations of the majordomo install itself.

But it's a good start. And it explains how to get a copy of the list config file and make changes to it.

Unfortunately DA hasn't seen fit to include the extremely helpful comments in the list.config file that majordomo usually includes. You can add the comments automatically, using the config and writeconfig commands explained in list-owner-info.

While majordomo is designed to be robust and fairly forgiving (for example, it won't install a new configuration file with errors, but will write you back and point out the error), you should always experiment with a list you set up just for the purpose, and NOT a live list, until you're sure you know what you're doing.

Looking at the DA majordomo directories, it appears as if majordomo IS set up for archives, but I haven't tested the functionality yet, so I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

I sure hope this post helps someone :) .

Jeff
 
Thanks, Jeff, for that thorough answer and for the link to the documentation.

The reason I asked is because I plan to set up a list using this format:

[email protected] (John Smith)

and I'm wondering if John Smith would then be able to unsuscribe if his email program identifies him as simply '[email protected]'.
 
I'm not sure, and for that reason I've always just used the email address in the list.

You can try it of course, by setting up yourself, and then trying to delete yourself.

Jeff
 
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More info on "owner-list" alias thing ...

Jeff,

I'm not sure if I fully understand how to create an alias to the [email protected] account.

If I try to create a forwarder using owner-list, DirectAdmin tells me "there is already a mailing list alias with that name." Am I doing this backwards? Which address in the forwarder be set to owner-list -- "forwarder name" or "destination"?

What's puzzling to me is that the corresponding owner-list e-mail address doesn't appear anywhere in the DirectAdmin utility. What is the password for the owner-list account? I try using the admin password for the mailing list, but that doesn't work.

Finally, once I get the forwarder configured properly, what settings to I need to make in order to restrict the ability to post to the alias above? I would think that the alias would go in the RESTRICT POSTS field. Are there any other options that need to be configured?

Thanks for any help you can provide!
 
Tim,

We no longer use majordomo ourselves (I ran a fairly large commercial list business for a few years, but that business has wound itself down as more and more people use forums such as this one), and I've never heard from anyone using it on DA, so perhaps my clients don't use it either.

Nevertheless I'll do some checking and let you know what I find.

Please add to this thread in a day or two if you don't hear from me here, just to remind me.

Thanks.

Jeff
 
Thanks for any help you can provide.

I'm not totally dead in the water. My list is working fine. It's just that it seems that ANYONE on the list can post to the list and I'm trying to clamp it down.

The list is ony being used to notify subscribers of important news and upcoming events. It's not likely that any of the subscribers would ever attempt to post any messages.

However, I would like to make sure this doesn't happen!

We used MajorDomo before on another web server for the same purpose. It worked fine, so I know it's possible to do what I'm trying to do. It seems that the version of Major Domo running on the DA server is different than the one we were using.

Again, many thanks for your help.
 
cooperti said:
I'm not totally dead in the water. My list is working fine. It's just that it seems that ANYONE on the list can post to the list and I'm trying to clamp it down.
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Majordomo doesn't know anything about making a list an announcement list rather than a discussion list.

The way we've always done it in the past was by moderating the list (you can do that through instructions I've posted here before; it doesn't require any changes to the list-owner) and then just not approving any posts from anyone.
The list is ony being used to notify subscribers of important news and upcoming events. It's not likely that any of the subscribers would ever attempt to post any messages.
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You can't count on that; I've seen it happen over and over again on announcement lists I've subscribed to.
However, I would like to make sure this doesn't happen!
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Just set the list as moderated.
We used MajorDomo before on another web server for the same purpose. It worked fine, so I know it's possible to do what I'm trying to do. It seems that the version of Major Domo running on the DA server is different than the one we were using.
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DA uses majordomo 1.5x; there is a majordomo 2, but I don't know any list services operator that uses it; it's bloated and slower.

Jeff
 
Might be a stupid question, but why not use mailman if documentation is that sparse for majordomo? That one comes with webbased administration and is very user friendly.

It might require some reading to implement it in DA, but on the other hand, adding the webbased administration yourself to majordomo is also a lot of work.
 
Robert,

Don't worry about stupid questions. I'm standing on one leg here. My knowledge of server based applications is severly lacking.

I don't know much about MailMan. The reason I'm using MajorDomo is that my hosting provider uses the application. I had it all figured out until they "upgraded" me to a different server. :mad:

As far as I know, my hosting provider doesn't provide other server mail list apps.

Is MM difficult to install on the server side? Where can I get more info?
 
There's a lot of information available for Majordomo. It's true that Majordomo is a bit antiquated, and I have no idea why the DA staff decided to implement it.

If you want to implement Mailman, go ahead :) .

Jeff
 
I've considered implmenting it for DirectAdmin myself; if I do I can pass on most of the work to the fine folk at DA and then they can add the inteface.

Mark, Chris? Are you interested in it?

Jeff
 
Hi

I would also be interested in seeing Mailman installed on the DA interface but one question I have is how do the bandwidth module work with things like mailing lists?

Thanks

Jjma
 
Re: More info on "owner-list" alias thing ...

1
cooperti said:
I'm not sure if I fully understand how to create an alias to the [email protected] account.

If I try to create a forwarder using owner-list, DirectAdmin tells me "there is already a mailing list alias with that name." Am I doing this backwards? Which address in the forwarder be set to owner-list -- "forwarder name" or "destination"?

What's puzzling to me is that the corresponding owner-list e-mail address doesn't appear anywhere in the DirectAdmin utility. What is the password for the owner-list account? I try using the admin password for the mailing list, but that doesn't work.
Click to expand...

Jlasman gave the answer:
jlasman[/i] both [b]owner-list and list-owner are initially set to the user who owns the site[/b] said:
Finally, once I get the forwarder configured properly, what settings to I need to make in order to restrict the ability to post to the alias above? I would think that the alias would go in the RESTRICT POSTS field. Are there any other options that need to be configured?
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There's another way besides moderating the list. To restrict the posts, create another mailing list containing emails of authorized senders -- name it something like 'admins'. (make that list as secure as possible, of course.) Then, for the first mailing list, put 'admins' in the field for Restrict Posts -- in other words, for that field you're supposed to put List Names, not emails. And, you can put more than one list name by entering them with a space between each one.

BTW, I've been playing around with mine for a couple months now and it works pretty good. I have one list for discussion among 8 people (it's restricted so only members of the list can post), and another one that's for sending out a newsletter to about 50 people (it's restricted so only I can post).
 
Re: Re: More info on "owner-list" alias thing ...

The owner of the list is the 'user who owns the site'; the 'user who owns the site' is the name that was used to create the webhosting account -- the primary, main user -- the name of the webhosting account. It's whatever name was used to create the webhosting account.
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Now we're getting somewhere!

Are you saying that the owner corresponds to the username used to login to the DirectAdmin control panel for site administration? Or the user that corresponds to the primary POP3 account?
 
Got it.

I think I have it working. :) Your "secondary list" suggestion seems to prevent unauthorized posts. I say "seems to prevent ..." because I don't get a BOUNCE reply when I try to post from an unauthorized e-mail account.

Is this normal? The message just goes off into LA-LA land.
 
It should be going to the list-moderator for approval.

(Yes, even on a non-moderated list you should define a list-moderator; as I've stated before DA should be doing so, making the domain owner the list-owner.)

Jeff
 
HTML email vs Plain-Text email

"the owner corresponds to the username used to login to the DirectAdmin control panel for site administration" -- that's it. The owner is the email address for that username: [email protected] -- and that email address gets a POP3 account by default (it does on my sites, anyway).

I haven't figured out how to moderate yet -- that's for another time.


Here's another question:
In my mailing list, in the field for Footer, I put the usual How to Unsubscribe stuff. When I post to the list using Plain-Text mode in my email program, the footer displays. But when I post to the list using HTML mode, the footer doesn't display. Why is that? Is it possible to post to the list using HTML or is it better to stick with plain-text?
 
Majordomo has no idea how to recreate an email message, changing and adding mime parts. Footers will never show up with mime parts, and email messages with html have mime parts.

Also, it's considered rude to use a mailing list for html.

Especially a discussion list, as html seriously breaks both digests and archives.

Jeff
 
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