Xref: utzoo comp.sources.wanted:5700 comp.mail.misc:1438 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl From: karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted,comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: Need mailing list software/advice Message-ID:Date: 2 Dec 88 17:35:08 GMT References: <1328@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: OSU Lines: 57 In-reply-to: tar@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu's message of 2 Dec 88 13:40:10 GMT tar@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu (Tim Ramsey) writes: I've just volunteered myself to administer a mailing list. Lucky you. :-) I need software to handle the task of keeping control of the list. The following stuff is my generic mailing list administration scheme, which is used in the care and feeding of 9 mailing lists based here. In /usr/lib/aliases, you need the set of aliases: listname-request: YourUserName listname: "|/u/YourUserName/listname/sendscript" owner-listname: listname-request listname-out: :include:/u/YourUserName/listname/aliases owner-listname-out: listname-request Then the sendscript which I use is: #!/bin/sh sed -e '/^Reply-To:/d' -e '/^From /d' | \ (echo Reply-To: listname@cis.ohio-state.edu; \ echo Errors-To: listname-request@cis.ohio-state.edu; \ echo Precedence: bulk; cat -) | \ /usr/lib/sendmail -f listname-request@cis.ohio-state.edu \ -F 'Listname Mailing List' listname-out Maintenance of the list's aliases file is up to the list maintainer. This keeps its hassles away from the machine's administrator. Note the inclusion of an Errors-To:, thus foisting all problems back on the list maintainer as well. The "Precedence: bulk" is used (as well as "-f listname-request") to keep vacation(1) silent; see vacation's man page. Since all mail goes through the sendscript, it is possible to make it arbitrarily complex. I have one modified incarnation of the sendscript which provides what I refer to as a "fire extinguisher," which allows me to exclude certain addresses from being able to post to the list. (It was only needed once, and...well...temporarily, at that.) You may or may not want to force the new Reply-To: header; but there are (primarily SysV) mail user agents out there that insist on trying to send replies to the wrong place, and the presence of an explicit Reply-To: helps in some (not all) of these cases. Include yourself as the first entry in the aliases file for the list; you will thus get first delivery, and can be aware of potential problems which might arise soonest. Thanks in advance, Y'welcome. --Karl