4.1) HOW DO I GET STARTED?

4.1.1) General info

In general, messages should be sent in the body of the message, not in the subject. But this customized listserver handles both ways.

WHAT IS MAJORDOMO?

Majordomo is a program which automates the management of Internet mailing lists. Commands are sent to Majordomo via electronic mail to handle all aspects of list maintainance. Once a list is set up, virtually all operations can be performed remotely, requiring no intervention upon the postmaster of the list site.

_ majordomo - n: a person who speaks, makes arrangements, or takes charge for another. From latin "major domus" - "master of the house".

Majordomo controls a list of addresses for some mail transport system (like sendmail or smail) to handle. Majordomo itself performs no mail delivery (though it has scripts to format and archive messages).

Here's a short list of some of the features of Majordomo:

• supports various types of lists, including moderated ones.
• List options can be set easily through a configuration file, editable remotely.
• Supports archival and remote retrieval of messages.
• Supports digests.
• Written in Perl, - easily customizable and expandable.
• Modular in design.
• Includes support for FTPMAIL.

 

4.1.2) Creating a new list

We will create a new list for you. Make sure your listname has a different name than your userid. For the purposes of this manual, suppose you gave your list the wonderfully inventive name mailing-list-name.

4.1.3) Subscribing

To subscribe, send the message

subscribe your-list

 

to majordomo@your-domain.

4.1.4) Unsubscribing

To unsubscribe, send the message

unsubscribe your-list

 

4.1.5) Posting

Messages sent to your-list@your-domain will be posted to the entire list.

4.1.6) Master subscribing

approve pswd subscribe your-list new-subscriber@somewhere.com

 

This will subscribe yourself to the list or anyone else you wished. Pswd is your password. Try this out since we haven't yet subscribed you to your own list.

4.1.7) Master unsubscribing

approve pswd unsubscribe your-list former-subscriber@somewhere.com

 

This unsubscribes the person whose e-mail address is given.

4.1.8) Creating digests

To create digests, ask us to activate the digest feature for your list.

 

How do I control how often they are created?

You could use cron to create periodic digest with a command like the following:

echo mkdigest [digest-name] [digest-password] | mail majordomo@...

 

This will force a digest to be created. Or you can set the max size in the digest list config file down low, and force automatic generation.

This would mean that you would be changing the text:

maxlength = 40000

 

in the list configuration for the digest. (Send

config your-list pswd

 

to majordomo to get the configuration which you can edit and send back.

You can combine the two methods, for example to send out at least one digest per day but more if that one would be over a certain size.

4.2) Answers To Common Questions

4.2.1) How do I change my info message?

Send to listproc or majordomo:

newinfo mailing-list-name pswd

Blah, blah, blah.

 

This will add a welcome to the message everyone sees when they subscribe. It will also be used if a customer requests info on a list. Note the blank line between the newinfo command and Blah, blah, blah. Also note that you can not include any other commands with this command. Of course, the info message can be many lines.

4.2.2) How do I change my password?

passwd mailing-list-name old-password new-password

 

Will change your master password from the old-password to the new-password.

4.2.3) How do I get a list of the subscribers?

approve pswd who mailing-list-name

 

4.2.4) How do I post a message to my moderated list?

Posting a message with the following text at the beginning will work.

Approved: passwd

From: yourdomain@yourdomain.com

To: yourdomain-l@yourdomain.com

Subject: your subject

 

Message begins here. (Note the blank space -- the first blank line

in the message.)

 

4.2.5) How do I change the reply-to field?

Send the command config mailing-list-name pswd to get a copy of your self-documenting configuration file.

You will find the area that contains the reply-to field.

Update this field and then send the command newconfig mailing-list-name pswd followed by your new configuration file.

 

4.3) How Can I Learn More About Majordomo?

4.3.1) Special features

Even with this quite simple interface, people will still screw up. We have modified this listserver so that it can handle SUBSCRIBE MAILING-LIST-NAME E-MAIL ADDRESS as well and it can accept commands in either the subject area or body of the message. We wouldn't recommend telling subscribers about these extra features, but they reduce the amount of screwups you have to deal with.

 

4.2.2) Helpful mailing list

If you need help, there is a mailing list majordomo-users@greatcircle.com, which is frequented by lots of users of Majordomo.