mailinglist manager
Helmut Hullen
which mailinglist manager is a "ready for use" tarball for slackware?
I've searched some hours,
majordomo very old, too old?
mailman no slackware package (?)
ezmlm no slackware package (?)
listserv no slackware package (?), is it free?
other packages?
Viele Gruesse
Helmut
"Ubuntu" - an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".
Johannes Beekhuizen
Op zaterdag 27 september 2008 schreef Helmut Hullen aan All:
HH> majordomo very old, too old?
I got the impressio that it' nof supported any more.
HH> mailman no slackware package (?)
Very clear installation instructions. Good support from the
mailing list. Used by many people. I'm happy with it.
HH> ezmlm no slackware package (?)
HH> listserv no slackware package (?), is it free?
Don't know.
HH> other packages?
Groeten,
Hans.
jdh punt beekhuizen bij duinheks punt nl
Helmut Hullen
Du meintest am 27.09.08:
>> which mailinglist manager is a "ready for use" tarball for
>> slackware?
> Ecartis, it has tarball and rpm, you could use rpm2tgz
> if you really want to use a Slackware package version of it.
Looks good - thank you!
Sylvain Robitaille
> majordomo very old, too old?
Too old for what? It has no moving parts, and therefore has shown no
signs of wear ... It works. Can you honestly argue with that?
> listserv no slackware package (?), is it free?
I think it is, yes, but I haven't actually looked at that in years.
> other packages?
Sendmail. If your mailing-list needs are simple, just create the list
as a mail alias (I use included files for that on my personal system).
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille s...@alcor.concordia.ca
Network and Systems analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Helmut Hullen
Du meintest am 27.09.08:
>> majordomo very old, too old?
> Too old for what? It has no moving parts, and therefore has shown no
> signs of wear ... It works. Can you honestly argue with that?
I have now recompiled majordomo-1.94.5, with strange side effects: I can
change UID and GID (and some other variables) in the Makefile, but
"wrapper" doesn't care.
Seems to work with the predefined values.
>> other packages?
> Sendmail. If your mailing-list needs are simple, just create the
> list as a mail alias (I use included files for that on my personal
> system).
My collegue from the neighbour school just works this way ...
Peter Chant
>
> Sendmail. If your mailing-list needs are simple, just create the list
> as a mail alias (I use included files for that on my personal system).
>
I'd advise against that. You need a little more intelligence in the system
than a simple sendmail alias based list. I ran such a list once and all
was well until one of the subscribers got a virus (worm?) that happily sent
itself out as an email to the list.
I replaced it with procmail basedscript called from aliases that checked
that users put a certain word in the subject. Whilst this worked it was
probaly more effort than installing some mailing list software.
Pete
Sylvain Robitaille
> I have now recompiled majordomo-1.94.5, with strange side effects: I
> can change UID and GID (and some other variables) in the Makefile,
> but "wrapper" doesn't care.
Hrmmm... that hasn't been a problem here. I last installed majordomo
in 2004 on Slackware-9.1, and our current mail admins have it running on
Slamd64-12.0, with the same configuration I produced in 2004.
> Seems to work with the predefined values.
I don't see why it wouldn't work with changed values also, though.
Perhaps you can post more detail?
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille s...@alcor.concordia.ca
Network and Systems analyst / (ex)Postmaster Concordia University
Sylvain Robitaille
>> ... If your mailing-list needs are simple, just create the list as a
>> mail alias (I use included files for that on my personal system).
>>
>
> ... I ran such a list once and all was well until one of the
> subscribers got a virus (worm?) that happily sent itself out as an
> email to the list.
>
> I replaced it with procmail basedscript called from aliases that
> checked that users put a certain word in the subject. Whilst this
> worked it was probaly more effort than installing some mailing list
> software.
Most mailing list management software (at least those packages that I'm
familiar with) don't normally require list subscribers to include a
specific string in the subject header either, though, so that wouldn't
have produced the same solution you decided you needed.
Peter Chant
> Most mailing list management software (at least those packages that I'm
> familiar with) don't normally require list subscribers to include a
> specific string in the subject header either, though, so that wouldn't
> have produced the same solution you decided you needed.
>
Good point. How do they stop virii / worms etc?
Pete
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
> which mailinglist manager is a "ready for use" tarball for slackware?
>
> I've searched some hours,
>
> majordomo very old, too old?
Yes. Why do you put up with such pain and suffering?
> mailman no slackware package (?)
No. But you'd be classified a true masochist if you used it, so
that's alright.
> ezmlm no slackware package (?)
And qmail-specific anyway. There's an alternative for any MTA though,
called mlmmj.
> listserv no slackware package (?), is it free?
Listserv has long been sold commercially. It's actually very good,
even now, to be sure; a close approximation - perhaps even a
replacement - is in Majordomo2, an entirely perl-based alternative
that makes even Ecartis seem a little shy. (I use Ecartis though
myself, because it's lovely, even if it's a bit rough. Now, Ecartis
makes Mailman definitely look shy, or at least rather silly. Spend
some time with the source.)
> other packages?
MLMMJ is quite easy to set up if you do plus addressing, but it works
better on something besides Sendmail for use of the '-' extension
char. It still works though and is AFAIK the only other MLM that will
natively support VERP, not counting patches and mods to other MLMs and
not counting entirely standalone alternatives like Sympa. MLMMJ, for
Mailing List Management Made Joyful, is kind of nice for everybody to
use because it uses the famous listname-command@host syntax.
There is Dada Mail, for a mostly one-way MLM. It's different, in that
it requires no installation (it was meant for use on webhosts), and
works by fetching gatewayed mails and bounces from POP boxes.
Listmanager was written by a Sendmail guy (listmanager.org). It was
closed source when I last looked (due to embarassment of the author,
apparently) but it runs sendmail.org's lists. He provides easy-to-go
binaries.
Listproc, naturally, is the Listserv competitor of Bitnet that never
made it. But you can still get the source, if you fancy it. And I've
even seen it running occasionally on current lists.
Doubtless, there are others, if only Google weren't so full of spam
nowadays we could find them.
HTH
Cheers,
Sabahattin
Handover Phist
> Helmut Hullen wrote:
>> mailman no slackware package (?)
>
> No. But you'd be classified a true masochist if you used it, so
> that's alright.
I've been following this thread since I'm going to be setting up a
managed mailing list myself, and I'd like to know a bit more about why
this is a masochistic choice. I've chosen it to try first. I've already
got the mailing list set up in sendmail and will soon be configuring
Mailman.
By 'soon' I mean within the next week or two.
--
I want another RE-WRITE on my CEASAR SALAD!!
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
> Sabahattin Gucukoglu :
> > Helmut Hullen wrote:
> >> mailman no slackware package (?)
> >
> > No. But you'd be classified a true masochist if you used it, so
> > that's alright.
>
> I've been following this thread since I'm going to be setting up a
> managed mailing list myself, and I'd like to know a bit more about why
> this is a masochistic choice. I've chosen it to try first. I've already
> got the mailing list set up in sendmail and will soon be configuring
> Mailman.
Yeah, you just do that. And when you're all finished, bruised and
bleeding, you come back here and ask us, all tears and penitence, for
further advice. :-)
Seriously though, it's of course a matter of preference, but I
couldn't stand it from the beginning. I can't stand the installation
procedure, I can't stand the webification of absolutely everything, I
can't stand the user experience and the hopeless, useless,
bastardised, crappy email interface, I can't stand the per-list
configuration procedure or the painfully slow moderation process that
take me so far from my lovely email clients, I can't stand the way the
files are scattered about on the FS and the use of unreadable DB
files, I can't stand the need for sixty billion commandline tools for
doing bloody simple things, I can't stand the way it keeps
optimistically sending backscatter in the hopes the bounced will
somehow come back from the dead, I can't stand Mailman Tuesday or the
password reminders or, goddammit, even the need for a password by
compulsion, I can't stand having to maintain common configuration
across lists by noting every change on each one and then painfully
having to make them per list, I just can't bloody stand it! I run
several of these bastards, and all I can say is that I wish I had
control of the host machine so I could RIP it off and replace it with
Ecartis.
But you may feel differently. Just in case you don't, let me
recommend Ecartis again. You'll see why, when you get there. If you
start on it now, you'll see before it's too late. Honestly, it only
takes one directory in a simple build, and you'll forgive all your
wrongs when you see the beauty of it.
But let me point out a few very good features of Mailman: it's highly
suitable in virtual domain setups and it also has a great degree of
pre-existing integration with Exim, if you happen to use that.
There's also very robust MIME support. Perhaps if you enjoy these,
you'll appreciate Mailman.
But I still think you're going to bleed if you're anything like the
email and editor/shell addict I am. It's only when the end-users
mostly consist in "Normal" people that you begin to think that
perhaps, if nothing else, Mailman is sufficiently popular that your
users have a reasonable chance of using it (but is telling them to
email commands like "subscribe" and "help", or using a CGI interface
that requires registration first *really* all that hard?). If
performance counts and you're the one mostly doing the talking, and
your users only need the ability to get on or off your list, or mostly
consist in individuals generally clued in the matter of command-
response-based software interfaces, then Ecartis or some other less
frilly MLM is the clearest possible winner.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
Assuming the MTA actually passes on such bad mail to the MLM, most of
them can do regexp search/MIME mangling/message discard of one form or
another. You could turn harmful mails into harmless ones. Converting
HTML to plaintext is another popular one, as is removing all
attachments. For moderation-only lists, the smart listservers like
Mercury/32 and Ecartis let you specify a moderator's password in a
message header, and that prevents even forged virus or malicious mail/
spam/bad subscribers from getting to all the list subscribers without
approval by forging an admin or moderator's address on a post.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
Sylvain Robitaille
> How do they stop virii / worms etc?
In my experience, that's not the mailing-list management software's
job. If any attempt for that is to be made, it would be done probably
by the MTA (or more specifically software hooks into the MTA).
The mailing list management software's job is to distribute messages to
a list of recipients in an efficient manner. Perhaps also to make sure
that messages sent to the list are permitted only from specific
addresses (usually those subscribed to the list), and of course to
provide an interface for people to subscribe and unsubscribe to the
list.
We could get into details of every little thing various mailing list
management software makes possible, including some rudimentary
spam/virus-detection, but these would be beside the point, in my
opinion.
Peter Chant
> Peter Chant wrote:
>
>> How do they stop virii / worms etc?
>
> In my experience, that's not the mailing-list management software's
> job. If any attempt for that is to be made, it would be done probably
> by the MTA (or more specifically software hooks into the MTA).
>
Point made in several posts. I see your point. If I wanted virus scanning
better to go it generally via sendmail.
> The mailing list management software's job is to distribute messages to
> a list of recipients in an efficient manner. Perhaps also to make sure
> that messages sent to the list are permitted only from specific
> addresses (usually those subscribed to the list), and of course to
> provide an interface for people to subscribe and unsubscribe to the
> list.
Yes, did that. Bit conscious thought that From headers are forgable. IIRC
small list so I did it manually.
>
> We could get into details of every little thing various mailing list
> management software makes possible, including some rudimentary
> spam/virus-detection, but these would be beside the point, in my
> opinion.
>
I was just asking out of curiosity. However, the virus issue is a real one,
one that hit me.
Pete
Peter Chant
>
> Yeah, you just do that. And when you're all finished, bruised and
> bleeding, you come back here and ask us, all tears and penitence, for
> further advice. :-)
...
....
> having to make them per list, I just can't bloody stand it! I run
> several of these bastards, and all I can say is that I wish I had
> control of the host machine so I could RIP it off and replace it with
> Ecartis.
>
Sorry, I'm not quite sure, but I'm getting the feeling that you don't like
it...
;-)
Helmut Hullen
Du meintest am 28.09.08:
>> I have now recompiled majordomo-1.94.5, with strange side effects: I
>> can change UID and GID (and some other variables) in the Makefile,
>> but "wrapper" doesn't care.
> Perhaps you can post more detail?
cd /path/to/majordomo; ./wrapper config-test
requests UID 123, GID 45, Path /usr/test/majordomo
Sylvain Robitaille
> cd /path/to/majordomo; ./wrapper config-test
>
> requests UID 123, GID 45, Path /usr/test/majordomo
Hrmmm... Our majordomo installation here is quite extensively
customized, but the equivalent run here produces much more output,
including:
--------------------- euid/egid checks ---------------------
effective user = majordom (uid 332)
effective group = majordom ... (gid 332 ...)
---------------------- uid/gid checks ----------------------
real user = majordom (uid 332)
real group = majordom ... (gid 332 ...)
------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know how to imagine config-test's output from what you've
written above, or whether it is or isn't what you expected from the
configuration you haven't posted ...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille s...@alcor.concordia.ca
Network and Systems analyst Concordia University
Sylvain Robitaille
> ... Bit conscious thought that From headers are forgable.
Trivially forgeable in fact. It's a mailing list, though, not something
that should be counted on for any sense of security.
> ... the virus issue is a real one, one that hit me.
I doubt you're alone. Still, since that's an issue that affects mail
delivery in general, if you're going to address it at all, better to
address it as the mail arrives, not while it's being processed for
mailing lists. As you said, better to look at (hooks into) Sendmail for
that.
Grant
>Helmut Hullen wrote:
>
>> cd /path/to/majordomo; ./wrapper config-test
>>
>> requests UID 123, GID 45, Path /usr/test/majordomo
>
>Hrmmm... Our majordomo installation here is quite extensively
>customized, but the equivalent run here produces much more output,
...
lkml and friends at vger.kernel.org use majordomo, lkml has over 4k
members. They do fairly good spam filter as well, but I run a gmail
account there which snags ~1900 spams/month, leaving maybe a couple
a day coming through. Virus in email hasn't bothered me for years,
can't get executed, and this old email/news client doesn't know how
to render html.
Grant.
--
http://bugsplatter.id.au/
Helmut Hullen
Du meintest am 29.09.08:
>> cd /path/to/majordomo; ./wrapper config-test
>>
>> requests UID 123, GID 45, Path /usr/test/majordomo
> Hrmmm... Our majordomo installation here is quite extensively
> customized, but the equivalent run here produces much more output,
> including:
> --------------------- euid/egid checks ---------------------
> effective user = majordom (uid 332)
> effective group = majordom ... (gid 332 ...)
> ---------------------- uid/gid checks ----------------------
> real user = majordom (uid 332)
> real group = majordom ... (gid 332 ...)
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> I don't know how to imagine config-test's output from what you've
> written above, or whether it is or isn't what you expected from the
> configuration you haven't posted ...
I had tried 28:28, and "wrapper config-test" stopped with an error
message.
(Both UID ans GID were not occupied by another user or group)
Sylvain Robitaille
> I had tried 28:28, and "wrapper config-test" stopped with an error
> message.
... and that error message was ...
Keith Keller
>
> which mailinglist manager is a "ready for use" tarball for slackware?
>
> I've searched some hours,
>
No, but mailman is incredibly easy to compile and install oneself. I
use it at two different sites for dozens of mailing lists.
--keith
--
kkeller...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://www.therockgarden.ca/aolsfaq.txt
see X- headers for PGP signature information
Handover Phist
> Handover Phist wrote:
>> I've been following this thread since I'm going to be setting up a
>> managed mailing list myself, and I'd like to know a bit more about why
>> this is a masochistic choice. I've chosen it to try first. I've already
>> got the mailing list set up in sendmail and will soon be configuring
>> Mailman.
>
> Yeah, you just do that. And when you're all finished, bruised and
> bleeding, you come back here and ask us, all tears and penitence, for
> further advice. :-)
Yowsa. OK, you know more on this subject than I. Let me outline what I'm
doing. I need to send periodic mails out to a list of (currently) about
350 people. Replies are not needed as it's a newsletter type dealie. My
boss wants control over adding or removing names from the list. I dont
mind him having that as I dont want to be sitting around typing or
erasing e-mail addies all day.
Would mailing list software be the best choice for this task? Can one
restrict Sendmail to allow only a certain email address to mail another
e-mail address, because if spam gets on the mailing list
then....welll...deadly poison. Our customer base would look at us and
spit.
--
World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced
dress code!
Keith Keller
>
> It's only when the end-users
> mostly consist in "Normal" people that you begin to think that
> perhaps, if nothing else, Mailman is sufficiently popular that your
> users have a reasonable chance of using it (but is telling them to
> email commands like "subscribe" and "help", or using a CGI interface
> that requires registration first *really* all that hard?).
Most lists consist of ''normal'' people. I have users who can't even
manage to use the web interface for Mailman; if I tried to teach them
how to use an email-command interface (which I certainly do prefer) I'd
be answering their questions for days. Literally.
I've also had very few complaints from people on my tech-savvy lists.
Most of them have actually centered around the poor performance of my
SpamAssassin configuration, which has b0rked my MTA and Mailman; but
that's not a Mailman problem, obviously.
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
It isn't safe to assume that spam can't reach your list even when an
MLM is installed, though a whole lot easier to try to prevent,
particularly when a select small group are the only posters. Using an
include or alias without filtering is a very, very bad idea for a
sensitive output list.
So you definitely need a mailing list manager. Hmm. Let me fetch my
crystal ball ...
I think the fates have chosen Dada Mail for your first try. It has a
web-centric modus operandi compatible with bosses. It requires, for
an output-only list, no MTA change since you'd be authoring your mails
in a web page. The same place is where you do your address updates.
Clearly, this removes all lasting possibility of mailing list address
abuse, as an added bonus. And, because the editor is on the web, it
generates *perfect* multipart/alternative messages where text and HTML
are both beautified in style. Give it a try.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
Sylvain Robitaille
> Would mailing list software be the best choice for this task? Can one
> restrict Sendmail to allow only a certain email address to mail another
> e-mail address, ...
Majordomo can do that (and I imagine that Mailman can as well, but I
don't actually know). Whether Majordomo is suitable for your situation
depends on whether or not your boss knows how to edit a text file (most
direct way of modifying list subscription), or whether he finds it
"hard" to send email without HTML polution all over it (in which case
he'll have a horrible time with Majordomo at any level; the "official"
way of interacting with Majordomo is via commands emailed to the
software).
I hope that helps ...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille s...@alcor.concordia.ca
Network and Systems analyst / (ex)Postmaster Concordia University
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
It's running the (still-maintained!) Zmailer. This among other
reasons is why I think it's important that mailing list managers let
the MTA do the important work of actually distributing mail, because
that's their role. The MLM just tells the MTA which addresses to
distribute to at any given time. Zmailer is pretty well speed-
optimised, but that discussion is definitely OT.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
Peter Chant
> Yowsa. OK, you know more on this subject than I. Let me outline what I'm
> doing. I need to send periodic mails out to a list of (currently) about
> 350 people. Replies are not needed as it's a newsletter type dealie. My
> boss wants control over adding or removing names from the list. I dont
> mind him having that as I dont want to be sitting around typing or
> erasing e-mail addies all day.
>
Mindful that this does not cover the level of checking that Sabahattin
discussed, but sendmail aliases might cover a lot of what you want. You
can reference a file with a mailing list in it from aliases. If your boss
was content editing that then job done...
Except for limiting who can post.
Pete
Handover Phist
I've gotten that far already, but the fact that anyone can e-mail that
address and send mail to the entire list kinda creeps me out. If I can,
through some entry in sendmail.mc or access or whatever, restrict access
to that particular accout, I'd be a happy man indeed. Why learn new
software when you dont have to?
--
HUG A REVOLUTIONARY
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
Primarily because the alternative is to do it yourself, and the
authors of existing mailing list managers are already well-aware of
your problem and many others like it. They also know lots of
complicated stuff about mail protocols and formats that you may not
and that would anyhow bore you to death. :-)
You *could* conceivably go modifying Sendmail and use your aliases/
include file, add a check to the check_compat or check_rcpt rule to
enforce a given sender's address. (Actually, this has great
implications for avoiding either /dev/nulling or backscattering
unwanted mail because you now have SMTP-level rejection.)
But that still leaves you with:
1. No *definite* forgery prevention.
2. No automated way for users to get on or off lists.
3. No boss-compatibility interface.
4. No automatic bounce handling or other useful features.
5. Entirely non-future-proof - aliases the limit.
All of which, if you ask me, is worth installing mailing list software
for.
Or writing it yourself. :-) You can address each of the five points
above individually, but here you've just reproduced a mailing list
manager. But still, you can write a quick script to just filter posts
for a special header; you can add it to your rulesets and produce a
failsafe mailing list address, and you'll have most of what you want.
So yes, you can do it with aliases if your careful in your situation.
Don't forget to set the owner-listname contact to you, else all the
users who bounce will return mail to the sender rather than the list
owner. The sender can't do anything about the misdelivery from your
system, whilst you can. (I'm not at all being condescending if you
think I'm challenging your knowledge, just watch out for this common
error.)
I only have about ten users, and although my list (Ecartis on
Sendmail) is two-way the importance of moderating external content and
allowing users to get on or off whenever they wish hasn't really been
clearer, because the list address gets found sooner rather than later,
and there's always a trusted plonk who will gladly mail in the
mandatory 3MB attachment. (Ecartis has a great feature that will post
attached files into a directory served by your web server for users to
pick up at their own will, thus solving the bulk bandwidth problem.)
So for me, a mailing list manager isn't optional. And I've no gripes,
because Ecartis is very smooth.
Good luck with it, anyway.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
Peter Chant
> I only have about ten users, and although my list (Ecartis on
> Sendmail) is two-way the importance of moderating external content and
> allowing users to get on or off whenever they wish hasn't really been
> clearer, because the list address gets found sooner rather than later,
> and there's always a trusted plonk who will gladly mail in the
> mandatory 3MB attachment. (Ecartis has a great feature that will post
> attached files into a directory served by your web server for users to
> pick up at their own will, thus solving the bulk bandwidth problem.)
> So for me, a mailing list manager isn't optional. And I've no gripes,
> because Ecartis is very smooth.
>
You forgot the person who just marks all the messages as spam, even though
the've been told how to unsubscribe, it was reasonable to put them on the
list in the first place and they ought to remember that if they ask you
will sort it anyway... Despite meeting regularly in real life, not just via
the net!
Pete
Helmut Hullen
Du meintest am 29.09.08:
>> I had tried 28:28, and "wrapper config-test" stopped with an error
>> message.
> ... and that error message was ...
I tried to reproduce the error message on another machine: not
reproducable. Strange ...
But I won't mourn.
Time to build a slackware package.
Helmut Hullen
Du meintest am 28.09.08:
> MLMMJ is quite easy to set up if you do plus addressing, but it works
> better on something besides Sendmail for use of the '-' extension
> char.
That's a little problem - I use servers which run "sendmail".
doesn't look user-friendly (because it's sendmail).
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
> Hallo, Sabahattin,
>
> Du meintest am 28.09.08:
>
> > MLMMJ is quite easy to set up if you do plus addressing, but it works
> > better on something besides Sendmail for use of the '-' extension
> > char.
>
> That's a little problem - I use servers which run "sendmail".
>
> http://mlmmj.org/man/sendmail
>
> doesn't look user-friendly (because it's sendmail).
Yeah, it isn't, but only if you need VERP. But you're still stuck
with '+' as your extension char, because we're Sendmail.
If you don't like this (it was just a suggestion), then another MLM
that doesn't need special extended addresses would be better for you.
Personally I find listname+command@host a bit ugly/wrong, '-' is
better but not configurable here.
Cheers,
Sabahattin