1. EZMLM/IDX USER'S MANUAL 1.1 Introduction. 1.2 Sending
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1. Re etc do not make a difference so the returned set is the usually entire thread mailinglist info example org Send me some information about this list the list owner decides how this command is supported mailinglist faq example org Send me the list of frequently asked questions and answers for this list the list owner decides how this command is supported mailinglist digest subscribe example org You guessed it subscribe to the digest list for mailinglist example org provided there is one Digest are usually sent about every other day but this also depends on the message volume and settings adjusted by the list owner mailinglist digest unsubscribe example org Yes it s that easy 1 3 Subscribing to an ezmlm mailing list As mentioned previously ezmlm commands are put into the ADDRESS To subscribe to mailinglist example org send an empty message to mailinglist subscribe example org ezmlm will send a confirmation request back to you To confirm your subscription just reply to the Reply To address Usually the reply function of your mail program will do this When ezmlm receives your confirmation it will add your address to the subscriber database and send you a message to tell you that you are a subscriber If your mail program supports it you may be able to just click on the address in the message The confirmation is used so that only you and the list adminis2. If you like you can just use the address in the Return Path header and replace the return 2345 with unsubscribe Replying to the confirmation request will return the desired acknowledgement that the address has been removed from the subscriber database You can also send unsubscribe requests for each potential subscription address and reply to the confirmation requests The message sent by ezmlm in response to you unsubscribe confirmations will tell you if you unsubscribe attempt was successful With ezmlm idx you can also send mail to mailinglist query fred old com example org mailinglist query ollum previous edu example org and so on For each message the address will receive a reply telling you whether or not the address is subscribed or not Construct a unsubscribe message from the one that gave you a positive reply and you re off the list If you for some reason are not successful with these attempts you can as a last resort contact mailinglist owner example org Please describe your problem and include a FORWARDED message from the list and a list of the possible addresses you might be subscribed under The list owner will be able to help you get off the list and can usually figure out your subscription address from the information sent see Helping users to unsubscribe Unsubscribe from subscription moderated lists works the same way as for normal lists You never need approval to remove y
3. 1 7 Accessing the ezmlm message archive By default ezmlm mailing lists keep an archive of all the messages sent to the list Some of them may have been removed by the list owner but usually at least the last few month s message will be there With ezmlm you can retrieve one message at a time with the get command With ezmlm idx you can access the archive in three different ways You can get an index listing message subjects and authors only This information is sent as sets of 100 messages with up to 2000 entries per request You can also get a range of messages up to 100 per request which will be sorted by subject Re and other subject modifiers are ignored and time received Finally you can retrieve a set of messages or a thread containing a specific message This usually gives you an ordered set starting with the first post and then all replies in order received To access the archive again remember that commands are put into the ADDRESS Here are examples of the commands mailinglist get 123 example org Get message 123 mailinglist index example org Get the subject and author information for the last 100 200 messages This also tells you the latest message number mailinglist index 205 example org Get the index for messages 200 299 mailinglist index 200_299 example org Get the index for messages 200 299 mailinglist get example org Get the messages accumulated since the latest di
4. features available only with ezmlm idx are marked with For more technical information about ezmlm it s options and error resolution please read the FAQ http www ezmlm org and the ezmlm man pages A text version of the FAQ is included in the ezmlm idx distribution The latest FAQ in various formats can be found at ftp ftp id wustl edu pub patches or ftp ftp ezmlm org pub patches The FAQ also contains information on where to obtain ezmlm where to find mailing lists about ezmlm etc While it is called a FAQ the document will with time become the ezmlm idx technical manual The man pages are always installed with ezmlm To read the man page for ezmlm do man ezmlm To read the man page for ezmlm make do man ezmlm make Also take a look at Dan J Bernstein s pages on ezmlm and other programs he has written at http www pobox com djb and the qmail home page at http www qmail org 4 2 More about this document This document is updated for ezmlm 0 53 and ezmlm idx 0 32 It is available at ftp ftp id wustl edu pub patches ezman as ezman x xx format tar gz x xx is the version format is the format e g ps and tar is present if the document consists of several files ezmlm idx versions have a 2 digit minor version number with a third digit added for bug fixes no new features Thus 0 314 is the forth bug fix release of 0 31 Manuals and FAQ follow a similar convention with the fir
5. However for um lists such posts are ignored This gives the moderator the choice of accepting the message rejecting it with the accompanying notification of the sender and silently ignoring it most appropriate for e g junkmail spam Like normal subscribers digest subscribers are allowed to post Placing restrictions on archive access For some lists you may not want non subscribers to be able to read archived messages This restriction can be placed on a list with the ezmlm make 1 g switch Since ezmlm always sends archive excerpts to the sender of the request this ensures that only persons able to read mail to a subscriber address can receive archive excerpts All such persons can already read the list traffic The same is true for digest subscribers who also have access to the digest The DIR allow directory holding the allow addresses can be useful to give archive access to addresses not in the list or list digest subscriber databases Addresses in this database are treated as subscribers both for archive access and posts but of course they will not receive list messages You can also make the list non public This can be done by removing DIR public or by using the ezmlm make P switch see More information This results in a list where only remote administrators can access the archive You can eliminate the archive altogether but it may be required for other purposes such as digest generation 3 7 Mod
6. can just add the second address to DIR allow to permit this The previous chapter describes how to do this via the allow command extension see Adding subscriber aliases If you have shell access you can simply ezmlm sub listDIR allow john example net To list all the addresses in DIR allow ezmlm list listDIR allow Similarly you can use ezmlm unsub 1 and ezmlm list 1 to remove and list addresses respectively Another address database is DIR deny If the list was configured with the ezmlm make 1 k switch posts from addresses in this database are rejected This is easy to circumvent but very handy if a subscriber creates a mail loop ezmlm qmail has excellent loop detection but some subscriber vacation programs generate a new message to the list for every message received and ezmlm has no way of knowing that this is not a legitimate post For such a subscriber address you can just temporarily add the sending address to DIR deny which is some cases is preferable to simply unsubscribing the user If this database is configured remote administrators can access it via the deny command extension see Preventing an address from posting The final database is DIR mod in which moderator and remote administrator addresses are stored Remote administrators may themselves un subscribe any address Remote administration see Remote administration is configured with the ezmlm make 1 r switch The same addresses
7. the database This database does not affect archive access 2 6 Listing subscribers The list may be configured to allow remote administrators to obtain a list of subscriber addresses If mailinglist example org is set up with this option and you are a remote administrator mail to mailinglist list example org will get you the list If you are sending from another account you can use mailinglist remote admin net example org to get the list to remote admin net Of course this will work only if remote admin net is aremote administrator Subscriber lists for the digest deny and allow databases are obtained in a similar manner by a message to mailinglist digest list example org mailinglist deny list example org or mailinglist allow list example org 2 7 Subscription moderation If the list is set up for subscription moderation a moderator has to approve the user s subscription request The process starts with a user subscribe request followed by the normal user confirmation After this ezmlm sends a second confirmation request to the moderator s If any moderator replies to this request the user is accepted as a subscriber You may send the user a message to request further information However this will reveal your address identity to the user Users may unsubscribe at any time without moderator assistance 2 8 Searching and listing the subscription log If configured remote admin
8. 1 EZMLM IDX USER S MANUAL 1 1 Introduction This chapter helps the potential subscriber to ezmlm idx lists to learn the basic functions of the mailing list manager It contains information on how to start and stop subscribing to ezmlm idx list how to access the list archive how to send messages to the list and how to contact the list owner if necessary Features marked are available only if the list uses ezmlm idx in addition to ezmlm See More information for more information on ezmlm and ezmlm idx ezmlm is a modern mailing list manager Its purpose is to efficiently send a message to a large number of recipients with minimal delay It allows automated additions and subtractions from the subscriber database In addition it may keep an archive of messages It can also impose restrictions on what may be sent or retrieved and by whom Some mailing list managers keep a database of subscriber information and tailor the message specifically for each subscriber ezmlm sends the same message to all subscriber This is much more efficient The benefits to the user are that on average posts to ezmlm lists reach subscribers much faster than they would with other mailing list manager The digest list is special kind of mailing list extension Instead of receiving posts it sends out digest ordered collections of messages when a predetermined limit in time or traffic volume has been reached From the subscriber point of view the d
9. Like other list changes you can use ezmlm make with the e edit switch together with other desired switches and arguments An existing list can be made message moderated with o ezmlm mak m DIR To add remote administration add the r switch To add subscription moderation add the s switch 3 18 Backing up and removing parts of the archive The archive is a set of files one per message kept in the archive subdirectory of the list directory The directory archive 0 contains messages 1 99 archive 1 messages 100 199 etc The files within the directories are named by the last 2 digits of the message number 01 99 for archive 0 and 00 99 for others In addition each set of messages is indexed in the file index stored with the corresponding message files With time the archive grows and it may become necessary to remove some messages When the list is at message 12301 one may wish to remove messages 1 9999 from the archive Easiest is to remove messages as entire subdirectories For the above do ole cd tar cvf listarchl 9999 tar DIR archive DIR archive 1 gzip listarchl 9999 tar rm rf DIR archive DIR archive 1 The dir here is the list directory You may be able to combine the gzip action with y y Zip the tar command by adding the z switch Ae o ole Save listarch1_9999 tar gz in a safe place Usually you would choose a better name for the backup ta
10. address and remove the address once you reply mailinglist unsubscribe user gol com example org Unsubscribe user gol com mailinglist query example org Tell me if my address is subscribed to the list or not mailinglist get 123 example org Get message 123 from the archive If you specify a number that is larger than the highest message number in the archive you ll receive the latest message mailinglist get example org Get the latest 30 messages from the archive If the list has a digest the messages returned are the messages received since the latest digest the last message of the latest digest is returned so that there always will be at least one message mailinglist get 45 67 example org Get messages 45 67 from the archive No more than 100 messages can be returned per request If the first argument is larger than the highest message number in the archive you ll instead receive the latest 30 or so messages from the archive For a list with a digest you ll get the messages that have arrived since the last digest as well as the last up to 30 messages of that digest mailinglist index example org Send subject and author name for the last 100 200 messages No more than 2000 entries are returned per request mailinglist index 300_399 example org Send subject and author of messages 300 399 mailinglist thread 45 example org Receive an ordered set of all messages that have the same subject as message 45
11. ail to mailinglist allow subscribe john example net example org unsubscribe and other commands work the same way The messages ezmlm sends talk about the mailinglist allow example org mailing list but of course you know that this is just a figure of speech On lists that do not have subscription moderation users can add themselves to the allow database in the same way This is documented only briefly in the USER S manual Archive access may also be restricted to subscribers Like subscribers of the list or the digest list addresses in the allow database are allowed to access the archive 2 5 Preventing an address from posting Just as you may want to allow some non subscriber addresses to send messages to the list you may want to temporarily prevent an address from posting to the list This is easily defeated but very useful if some defective mail robot or other mailing list sends messages to the list address The system works just like the allow list but is called deny To prevent robot druga su from posting to mailinglist example org send mail to mailinglist deny subscribe robot druga su example org and reply to the confirmation request respectively You can do this only if you are a remote administrator and the list is set up to support this option You can use unsubscribe query and other commands with this address collection just as for the normal subscriber database Normal users cannot access
12. articipate in the discussion A digest is sorted so it s easy to read what interests you Thus the digest for mailinglist example org would be called mailinglist digest example or and you would mail mailinglist digest subscribe example org Simple ezmlm idx lists test if the conditions for a digest are met whenever a message arrives Thus the digests do not arrive at a specific time but rather approximately every two days or more often if there is a lot of traffic On some mailing lists you are a subscriber and as a subscriber you can choose to receive the messages individually or as a digest With ezmlm you can subscribe to the list for individual messages or to list digest for digests Some people prefer to subscribe to both They can keep up with a discussion if they like but if they have too little time they can just delete the individual messages and read the threads that interest them To switch from being a list subscriber to being a list digest subscriber simply subscribe to the digest and unsubscribe from the main list You will still be able to post to the main list With some mailing list managers the digest is edited by a human ezmlm digests contain each message as it was sent out by the list apart from having many less informative headers removed No editorials no missing messages The messages are ordered by subject or story or thread and within each subject by arrival time Firs
13. ay of knowing that it is not a post This is very rare but may happen The symptom is that a John is on vacation messages will arrive at the list go out to subscribers only to be followed by another John is on vacation message and so on To stop this look at the sender of the vacation message Unsubscribe the address Even rarer is that there is a mail loop somewhere on the Internet and that it sends of messages to your list Unsubscribing doesn t help Your only recourse is to block the sender of the message from posting Easiest is to use the deny function with the ezmlm make 1 k switch then add the sender address ezmlm sub DIR blacklist badname badhost or if configured send mail as a remote administrator to Listname deny subscribe badname badhost listhost You could also add a line bin echo SSENDER usr bin grep iv badname badhost exit 99 to DIR editor of the list 3 15 Dealing with SPAM ezmlIm idx lists by default reject messages that do not have the list address in the To or Ce headers Most bulk E mail does not pass this test If you still receive too much junk mail to your list you can set up your list as a subscriber only list This creates a small overhead of users who try to post from addresses that are not their subscriber address See above on how to deal with this Since the message sender is easy to fake this is not secure A dete
14. d by the same commands i e the ezmlm make l switch In addition it requires remote administration to be enabled r See Allowing remote admins to get a subscriber list for more info 3 10 Allowing remote administrators to edit ezmlm text files Use the ezmlm make 1 n switch to allow remote editing of text files to remote administrators Editing is allowed for all existing text files Thus in order to allow editing of the DIR text info file sent in response to the info command you must at least have created such a file from the shell command line or via ezmlmrc default for new lists See More information for more information A list of editable files is contained in the DIR text edit list file This file itself for the list mai linglist example org is editable via mailinglist edit edit list example org This file has no effect on which files can be edited but it useful since it contains the instructions returned in reply to the edit command Hyphens in file names need to be replaced by underscores in the edit commands See More information for more information 3 11 ezmlm handling of undeliverable bounced messages Qmail mail systems are fault tolerant by virtue of a queuing mechanism where a message is removed from the queue only when the recipient mail transfer agent MTA has acknowledged receipt of the message With this the responsibility for the message has been transferred from the sending MTA to the recei
15. eady To unsubscribe from mailinglist example org just send a message to mailinglist unsubscribe example org then reply to the confirmation request ezmlm will send you a message to let you know that you are no longer a subscriber ezmlm will also let you know if the address was not in the subscriber list If so you are probably subscribed under another address When this happens construct an unsubscribe request that contains your subscription address If you message contains a List Unsubscribe header just click on it if your mail reader supports it and send of that message If you mail reader doesn t support this copy the entire address from after mailto until just before gt paste it into the To field of a new message and press SEND Reply to the confirmation request Otherwise you have to know your subscription address To find it look at the very first header of any message from the list This should contain something like mailinglist return 2345 harold example com example org which tells you that the message number is 2345 and the subscriber address is harold example com Now you remember that you subscribed a address and construct the appropriate command address to remove that address from the subscriber database mailinglist unsubscribe harold example com example org You can see that this is a normal unsubscribe request with a followed by your subscription address with the replaced by a
16. eparate E mail Of course a list owner may choose to make the moderators identities public ezmlm also keeps subscriber addresses secret Only if configured see below will it allow the addresses to be listed and then only to remote administrators ezmlm sends special moderator help in response to a help request for a moderator To receive this information for mailinglist example org send mail to mailinglist help example org 2 2 Message moderation ezmlm lists may be set up with message moderation When ezmlm receives a message for the list it saves it sends a moderation request with the message enclosed to the moderator s The subject of moderation request is MODERATE for If you would like to approve the message just reply to the Reply To address of the moderation request Usually this is the default for the reply function of your mail program Alternatively click on the accept address or copy and paste it into the To field of a new message To reject the message reply to the From address click on the reject address or copy and paste the reject address into the To field of a new message You can also just replace the text accept in the accept address with reject Optionally type a comment between two lines starting with The sender of the message will receive a message from ezmlm explaining that the message was rejected If you typed a comment
17. gest returns latest 30 messages if there are no digests for the list The normal format is MIME with only the important headers If you instead of the get command use getr you get the digest as a single long message without MIME The getv command gives you the MIME format but now all the headers of the individual messages are returned Normally only the important headers are included to save space but other headers may sometimes be relevant for error tracing etc mailinglist get 123 456 example org Get messages 123 456 Because you can only get up to 100 messages per request only messages 123 222 will be send Send new requests to get the remainder mailinglist thread 123 example org Get the thread containing message 123 To change the format use the threadr or threadv format instead These work Just like their get cousins see above If you haven t been following the list for a while or you just want to see the discussion of a specific question the easiest is to start with index If not found send further index requests going backwards in the archive Once you ve found one message e g 667 in the thread use the thread command mailinglist thread 667 example org to get the entire set If you re a digest subscriber and find an interesting discussion use thread or the mailinglist get example org address to catch up with the latest messages in that thread or on the list The thread command is a
18. gest list If a subscriber s posts or archive access attempts are rejected the subscriber is working with a sender address that is not the one s he is subscribed under Usually the user s sender address will be in the E mail to you ezmlm idx keeps a database of allow addresses which are treated like subscribers for the purpose of subscriber only restrictions but are not sent posts To add an address send mail to listname allow subscribe user userhost listhost If you re a remote administrator the confirmation request will come to you otherwise to user userhost Replying to the request will add the address The user should now be able to post and access the archive To remove an address user the same procedure but with the unsubscribe command Users can manipulate the database themselves but this may be too complicated for all but advanced users If you set up the list with ezmlm make umr messages from addresses that are not subscribers will be sent for moderation This allows you to ignore junk mail and approve other posts as well as add the address to the allow address database all without the subscriber noticing see Placing restrictions on subscribers for more info 3 14 Stopping mail loops Qmail and ezmlm have built in advanced mail loop prevention However some auto responders are misconfigured and create a new message to the list for every message received Since this is a completely new message ezmlm has no w
19. gh the digest subscriber log for Keith mail list digest log keith host 2 9 Editing ezmlm administrative messages If configured remote administrators may edit via E mail ezmlm text files such as the one sent in reply to the help command A list of editable files their use and instructions for editing may be obtained with the edit command Thus for the list mailinglist example org send a message to mailinglist edit example org and follow the instructions With or without ezmlm idx the messages can be modified locally with a text editor 3 EZMLM IDX OWNER S INTRODUCTION 3 1 Introduction This chapter tells you how to deal with common problems and introduces you to the power and technical aspects of ezmlm idx If you want to customize your list please use the man pages and FAQ included in the ezmlm and ezmlm idx packages see More information As the owner of an ezmlm list you will appreciate the high degree of speed and automation of ezmlm Even with large numbers of subscribers the parallelism of ezmlm qmail results in rapid delivery of the message to the subscribers This makes it easy to have discussions among list members With slower list managers the discussion is often limited to a small set of users who send mail on the topic to each other Cc ing the message to the list When the other subscribers receive the message the discussion is way past this point Features available only if ezmlm idx is used a
20. h a list to help a user unsubscribe or to remotely backup the subscriber list ezmlm will supply such a list if the list was set up with the ezmlm make 1 r and l switches and the recipient of the list is a remote administrator see Remote administration The command is ist Thus for the digest of mailinglist example org a message to mailinglist digest list example org would return the list of subscribers but only if the sender is a remote administrator and the ist function is enabled The remote administrator right apply to all address databases of the list subscribers of list and list digest allow and deny except the moderator addresses Moderators addresses cannot be accessed remotely 3 9 Allow remote administrators to access the subscription log The subscription log is stored in DIR Log An entry is made for each modification made to the subscriber database For subscription by E mail the subscribers From line is logged In contrast to the subscriber database the log is not written in a crash proof manner Thus information might be lost if the system crashes while the log is being updated Remote administrators can list this log with the log command or search it for specific entries with the og xxx command where xxx are letters or numbers to be matched exactly or an underscore _ to match any character Since the information is highly overlapping with the subscriber list it is enable
21. ifying messages sent by ezmlm All these additions can be made default for all lists by modifying ezmlmre see More information Adding a trailer to each message You can add small trailer to each message This usually would contain information on how to unsubscribe from the list or where the list html archive is kept To add a trailer simply put the text in the file text trailer in the list directory You can use the ezmlm make 1 t switch to set up the list with a simple trailer that gives unsubscribe instructions ezmlm will substitute the tags lt h gt lt l gt and lt n gt with the list host name local name and the current message number respectively The current message number for digests is the number of the first message in the digest You can use this to e g add a line to get this thread mail lt l gt thread lt gt lt h gt This will always point to the archive of the current list with the current message number and thus retrieve the thread containing the current message Removing certain headers from messages DIR headerremove contains headers that are removed from all messages before they are sent to the subscribers Some of these must be removed in order for the list to function You can add others see More information If you add a header that should not occur multiple times it is good to add the same header here to have it removed from incoming messages if it exists Adding heade
22. igest list for the mailing list List host is called list digest host You use the same commands when subscribing or unsubscribing to a digest as you do when you join of leave the main list The only difference is the list name you use with your commands list digest host and list host respectively There is nothing to stop you from being a subscriber of both To temporarily leave an ezmlm list just unsubscribe Subscribe again later when you wish to receive messages or digests again ezmlm processes such requests virtually instantaneously removing the need for a temporary hold command ezmlm is highly automated Virtually everything can be done simply rapidly and without human intervention ezmlm encodes your address and the message number in the return address to automatically handle bounces i e messages returned to sender because they couldn t be delivered to the subscriber This can be used to find out the message number as well as the address you re subscribed under see Unsubscribing from an ezmlm list 1 2 Sending commands to an ezmlm idx mailing list ezmlm has a different address for each command In essence the address is the list name and the command This is straight forward to interpret and therefore very fast It also makes it very easy to send commands from the command line without having to worry about the subject and the message body which are ignored Messages to the list address itself are sent to all subscriber
23. is from the command line Alternatively you can as a normal user send a unsubscribe request for the subscriber address and let the subscriber confirm Another alternative is to tell the user to send a message to listname help listhost and ask the user to follow the instructions which are very explicit Other users have attempted to unsubscribe but failed They usually will tell you what they ve tried and forward a list message to you Most likely they are subscribed with an address other than their normal sender address If you re lucky the subscriber address is in the users E mail to you If not you can ask the user to give you a list of possible addresses You can then send mail to Listname list listhost if enabled and use find or grep to search through the list for parts of the users addresses If remote subscriber listing is not available try o ezmlm list DIR grep i part_ of user address Then send an unsubscribe for the address es The user will usually receive a confirmation request if you found the correct address and can reply to it to get off the list Another possibility is to search the subscription log for a part of the subscribers name usually shown in the From header see Searching and listing the subscription log 3 13 Helping subscribers post and access the archive on subscriber only lists Subscriber only lists allow posts and archive access only to subscribers of the main list or the di
24. istrators may view or search the subscription log This is a file that contains all changes in the subscriber database one per line in order of occurrence Each line has the date the direction for additions for removals and the way the change was made blank for normal subscribe unsubscribe manual for manual additions from the command line or probe for addresses removed via automated bounce handling the addresses and for additions usually the From header contents from the subscription confirmation reply Listing this file allows the remote administrator to see recent additions and removals This is done by sending a message to list log host Remote administrators can also search through the log To retrieve all entries fr_d where _ can be any character mail list log fr_d host The search is case insensitive When you want to search for addresses just replace the in the address with _ This feature is useful when a user wants to unsubscribe but has changed his address and doesn t remember the subscription address Just search for the host name part of the user s name etc Usually it is obvious which of the few alternatives is the correct one Construct an unsubscribe request from it and if you are right the user will receive a request to confirm the unsubscribe Replying to it will remove the user from the subscribers The command works also for other address databases Thus to search throu
25. it will be put into the rejection notice The third alternative is to ignore the request If no moderator has replied within 5 days the message is returned to the sender with an explanation The owner can also set up the list so that ignored posts are silently removed which may be more suitable for some lists To minimize mail to busy moderators ezmlm does not confirm moderator actions More than one moderator may reply The message will not be duplicated The first valid reply that is received will decide the fate of the message ezmlm will send an error message only if a later reply requests an action different from the one already taken Thus if you decide to accept the message but another moderator has already rejected it ezmlm will notify you If instead the message had been previously accepted ezmlm would log your request but it will not send you a notification If a message is sent by a moderator it is sent for approval to that moderator only The approval is necessary since anyone can claim to be a moderator but only the moderator will be able to receive the moderation request This feature is very useful for announcement lists where any moderator can make an announcement without bothering the others while at the same time non moderators cannot post without permission 2 3 Remote administration A remote administrator is an address that can add remove addresses from the subscriber list To subscribe john example net to the
26. list mailinglist example org send mail to mailinglist subscribe john example net example org Normally john example net will be asked to confirm However if you are a remote administrator you will receive the confirmation request Thus john example net does not need to participate When you ve successfully added the address john example net will receive a message acknowledging his subscription You can unsubscribe addresses unsubscribe or determine if an address is a subscriber query If the owner has chosen to enable these functions you may also ist subscriber addresses list and or edit text files such as the one sent in reply to the help command see Editing ezmlm administrative messages below You can also search the subscription log with e g the user s name see Listing and searching the subscription log You can use all these functions to help users subscribe or unsubscribe to the list See Helping users unsubscribe in the OWNER S introduction for details 2 4 Adding subscriber aliases ezmlm lists may be set up to only allow subscribers to send messages to the list This is less secure than moderation but still keeps most garbage off the list Occasionally a user may wish to send messages from an address other than the subscription address As a remote administrator you can add the user s alias to a special allow database To add john example net as an alias to the mailinglist example org send m
27. lso useful if you catch the tail end of a discussion and want to read earlier messages Some lists may be set up to allow archive access to subscribers only If you are not a subscriber you can simply subscribe If you are a subscriber but are denied archive access you are subscribed under an address different from the one you are sending from Easiest is to unsubscribe see above the current subscriber address and subscribe the address you re sending from Alternatively some mail programs e g Mutt allow you to change the SENDER address depending on where you are sending mail Last if this address difference is necessary you may FORWARD a list message and a note with the two addresses and a request to mailinglist owner example org The owner will add your second address to a special address list of senders allowed to access the archive and post even though they are not subscribers Remember to replace mailinglist example org with the list address If you are adventurous see Adding an alias for information on how to do this without the help of the owner 1 8 Getting ezmlm digests a few times per week rather than individual messages ezmlm list may be set up with a digest function This is basically a second address database used to send out digests ordered collections of messages sent to the main list Usually a digest is sent out every other day This is very convenient for users who want to follow a list but not p
28. may also be subscription moderators If configured s switch a user can subscribe only if one or more of the moderators approve Messages to the list can also be moderated This is configured with the m switch Again the moderators are stored in DIR mod although it is possible to configure the list so that message and subscription moderators are different sets of addresses see More information To add a moderator administrator ezmlm sub DIR mod john example net ezmlIm list 1 and ezmlm unsub 1 are used to list and remove moderators Normally the moderator database cannot be accessed remotely However remote access can be arranged see More information 3 3 How ezmIm list setup is controlled ezmlm lists are set up with a one line ezmlm make 1 command Existing lists can be modified using the ezmlm make e or switches without loss of archive subscriber database or other state information The operation of ezmlm make is controlled by ezmlmrc To customize ezmlm list setup on a host wide or user virtual domain wide basis copy this file from the ezmlm binary directory to etc ezmlmrc of user ezmlmre and edit it See More information 3 4 Basic list types ezmlm offers virtually infinite possibilities for customization The more common types of lists can be created and configured with a single ezmlm make 1 command For more complicated lists and a discussion of how ezmlm works see More informati
29. mlm will send your message back to you and tell you why it failed You can then correct the problem and try again You can also mail mailinglist owner example org to reach the list owner and ask for assistance Replace mailinglist and example org with the real list local and host name respectively In all messages to the owner please include a FORWARDED copy of the error problem message see below Note ezmlm lists handle almost everything themselves Therefore the list owner may check the mail only infrequently Use ezmlm if at all possible and be patient when you wait for a reply from the owner In special cases the list owner may set up the list to be message moderated When you subscribe you should be told if the list is moderated Also ezmlm adds a special Delivered To moderator for header to the messages On a message moderated list your message instead of going directly to the list is sent to one or more moderators They can accept or reject but not modify the message If the message is accepted it is sent to the list unmodified If it is rejected it is sent back to you optionally with an explanation from the moderator On moderated lists it may take a little longer for the message to reach all the subscribers since it has to be read and approved by at least one moderator before being sent out to the subscribers Message moderation is very useful for e g announcement lists or lists where for othe
30. mportant than correctness If you do use this make it the list name and short e g mailinglist well that s from the example in real life this is too long and too long a name for a mailinglist as well ml example org with m1 would be better The prefix with the list name can be configured with the ezmlm make 1 f switch Alternatively just place the text in the file DIR prefix For a real thrill you can use ml Here will be replaced by the message number labelling all messages with the message number of the first message in the thread This is not only a mail standard violation but will inconvenience many users and html archiving programs Still it may be useful and help novice users use the archive efficiently mail ml thread example org where is the number in the prefix of the message to get the entire thread from the archive This works also with partially rfc2047 encoded subjects See the ezmlm send 1 man page for more info See Adding a trailer to posts for a better way to point the recipients to the thread retrieval function 3 8 Allow remote administrators to list subscriber addresses Many old mailing list managers allow users to list the addresses of all subscribers This used to be OK but has lately become a means for junkmailers spammers to acquire large collections of addresses Consequently ezmlm does not allow this Still it may be useful for the list owner to be able to get suc
31. on Public vs non public lists Normal mailing lists are public i e anyone can subscribe unsubscribe and access the list archive Occasionally you may want to set up a non public list where un subscribe actions are possible only from the command line or remotely by the administrator s This is controlled by the ezmlm make 1 P switch Adding a digest list to your ezmlm list The digest is a collection of messages produced about every two days If more than 30 messages or 64 kbytes of message body have arrived since the latest digest the digest is sent earlier All these criteria can be changed see More information Also lists can be set up to produce digests at a specific time each day every other day etc see More information Some users do not get involved in discussions on the list but rather want to read messages on a specific topic For these users a digest with sorted messages is much preferable to receiving the messages one at a time These users would subscribe to the digest list rather than to the list itself To set up a digest list with the list all you need to do is to use the ezmlm make d switch The digest of the list List host is always called list digest host Thus for the list mailinglist example org the digest list would be mailinglist digest example org The digest can be sent in several formats The default MIME with removal of non essential headers is virtually always the bes
32. our address from a moderated list Posting from an alternative address when post are allowed only to subscribers When a list is set up to allow posts from subscribers only a post from an address jonesj softx com may be rejected since this address is not a subscriber even though mail to the subscriber john univ edu reaches you ezmlm has no way of knowing this The easiest way to deal with this is to unsubscribe john univ edu and subscribe jones softx com If this is not possible desirable send the addresses in question with a note to mailinglist owner example org The list owner can add your sender address in this case jonesj softx com to an extra address lists of non subscribers allowed to post and access the archive The extra addresses are kept in a database much like subscriber addresses In fact you can add the address jonesj softx com as an alias for the list mailinglist example org by mailing mailinglist allow subscribe jonesj softx com example org and replying to the confirmation request Again you re changing the target address of the request from the default the sender address by adding the target to the command with the replaced by Of course the allow list doesn t send out posts It is solely a vehicle for storing allowed aliases 1 5 Sending messages to an ezmlm mailing list To send messages to an ezmlm list you must know its name If the list is called mailinglist example org just
33. r file Nothing else needs to be done If instead you remove individual messages and use ezmlm idx it is useful but not necessary to do fe ezmlm idx dir to re index the archive For a large archive on a slow machine this command may take a few minutes 3 19 Restoring parts of the archive To restore the messages saved in the example above to the archive simply ole cd gunzip listarchl 9999 tar gz tar xvf listarcgl 9999 tar gz ezmlm idx dir Re indexing the archive as shown is recommended since the format for the index file may have been changed if ezmlm was upgraded since the backup ae ol ole 4 More information 4 1 More about ezmlm and ezmIm idx ezmlm is a mailing list manager written by Dan J Bernstein ezmlm idx is an extension to ezmlm written by Frederik P Lindberg ezmlm has the essential features of a mailing list manager ezmlm idx adds useful but non essential features like digests list moderation etc The list owner will have made the trade off of features vs increased size and complexity To test if your list has ezmlm idx installed send a message to list get host where list host is the name of the list A list with ezmlm alone will send you a help message saying that your message wasn t sent to one of its command addresses A list with ezmlm idx will return one or more messages from the archive or a message telling you that the list is not archived Throughout this manual
34. r reasons not all posts are accepted ezmlm does not reveal the moderators identity to you If you feel that you are treated unfairly by a moderator please state your case to the list owner 1 6 Replying to a message from an ezmlm mailing list Messages sent via an ezmlm mailing list come From the original sender For many lists it is appropriate to discuss privately with the original sender then post a follow up message with e g a solution to the list In this case just Reply to the sender Without this behavior two things may happen First a subscriber may intend to reply to the original sender only but sends a message to the entire list This can be very embarrassing Second misconfigured subscriber programs sometimes send John is on vacation messages back to the From address The ezmlm setup allows these to go to the original sender a minor nuisance rather than to the list a major nuisance with the potential for mail loops if the subscriber software is severely misconfigured In other cases you may want to send the reply to all subscribers The easiest is to type in the list address by hand or to use the Reply to all function of your mail reader If you do this delete your address as well as the original sender s address so that the message goes to the list only Since messages reach subscribers within minutes it is usually superfluous and sometimes annoying to also send a reply directly to the sender as well
35. re ezmlm idx are marked An administrator is a person responsible for the management of a mailing list A remote administrator is an address with the rights to do certain administrative tasks remotely by E mail Depending on how the list is configured remote administrators may have the right ability to list subscribers search for subscriber addresses by name add and remove subscriber addresses and or edit the texts that ezmlm sends in reply to list commands A moderator is an address to which messages are sent for approval The message will be passed on only if a moderator has approved it ezmlm distinguishes between message moderators and subscription moderators Posts to a message moderated list are sent to the message moderators The list acts on the first moderator reply it receives to accept or reject the post For subscription moderated lists the users subscription requests are sent to the subscription moderators If at least one subscription moderator approves the request the user address becomes a subscriber While remote administration and subscription moderation are enabled separately the addresses are always the same Message moderators can be a different group of addresses but in practice most lists use the same addresses for all 3 functions In all transactions ezmlm keeps the moderators addresses secret even from other moderators If you want to tell the user who you are send them a s
36. re marked ezmlm subscribe and unsubscribe commands result in a handshake which essentially eliminates the possibility of people other than the user and possibly remote administrators adding or removing the user s address from the list For the list mailinglist example org mail to the mailinglist hel xample or address returns a message with all the relevant ezmlm commands for subscription and message archive related functions Archive access is simple and powerful Together these features make it very easy to set up and manage an ezmlm mailing list The rare messages to the list owner address mailinglist owner example org in the example are usually due to subscribers who have subscribed under one address and now use another Even they can un subscribe without owner intervention but some subscribers may be unable unwilling to read the ezmlm help message and follow the instructions therein 3 2 Using auxiliary address databases In addition to the regular subscriber address databases for the list and list digest ezmlm may use up to three other address databases One of these the allow database is housed in DIR allow File names are shown in boldface Directories end with a slash DIR is the list directory In case posts or access to the archive is restricted to subscribers addresses present in DIR allow are also accepted If the subscriber jones softx com sometimes posts from john example net you
37. ress from mailinglist digest example org send mail to mailinglist digest unsubscribe example org Again you can unsubscribe john example com by instead mailing mailinglist digest unsubscribe john example com example org ezmlm confirmation works as usual 1 10 Temporarily halting message delivery Just unsubscribe from the list or list digest then subscribe when you want mail to resume If desired get missed messages from the archive with get or just subject author info with index Due to the fast replies from ezmlm this is easier and more efficient than having dormant subscribers 1 11 Contacting the list owner You can contact the list owner by mailing to the owner address For the list mailinglist example org just send your message to mailinglist owner example org Please state your problem and FORWARD any error message or a list message with your request Since ezmlm can take care of virtually all request without human intervention the list owner may read mail only infrequently Please be patient and remember that in most cases you are asking the list owner to manually do what you could do yourself by e mail via ezmlm with the information in the error or list message 2 EZMLM IDX MODERATOR S AND ADMINISTRATOR S MANUAL 2 1 Introduction This chapter describes how to be a moderator message and subscription and remote administrator for a mailing list run by ezmlm idx Features that requi
38. rmined SPAMMER can subscribe to the list or just send mail From a subscriber address The next level of countermeasure is to have a message moderated and possibly subscription moderated list The overhead is higher someone has to approve each message but it is much more secure ezmlm idx has support for multiple moderators making it easy to set up a list with fast and efficient moderation which is a very reliable way to keep junk mail off a list 3 16 Dealing with archiving servers Several sites on the Internet subscribe to mailing lists archive the messages and make them publicly available This may not be desirable as the this often exposes the addresses of the subscribers The subscribers while happy to discuss their work on a peer list may not appreciate messages from the general public asking for follow ups to messages posted to the list ezmlm lists by default are set up with a X No Archive yes header For older lists or lists using ezmlm alone just add this header to DIR headeradd Well behaved archiving servers respect this If you want to maintain full control the only recourse is to make the list subscription moderated Of course the messages are no more secure than the least reliable subscriber Remove the X No Archive yes header for DIR headeradd if you want to allow well behaved archivers to collect your messages 3 17 Making an existing list message or subscription moderated
39. rs to list messages Headers in DIR headeradd are added to posts before they are sent to subscribers They are also added to the archived version of the message ezmlm will substitute the tags lt h gt lt l gt and lt n gt with the list host name local name and the current message number respectively For the digest of the list mailinglist example org the local name is mailinglist digest The current message number for digests is the number of the first message in the digest You can use this to e g add a sequence number header by putting X Seq lt n gt into DIR headeradd Stripping certain MIME parts from multipart messages ezmlm can strip out MIME parts from multipart MIME messages Some mail clients use multipart alternative to send both plain text and html versions of the same message On many lists this is considered annoying and wasteful messages are usually 2 3 times as large You can have ezmlm remove the html part from such messages by adding the line text html to DIR mimeremove Adding a subject prefix to messages ezmlm can also add a prefix to the subject line of each message that does not already contain it This was common on old lists when mail readers were unable to sort mail except by subject It still popular for historical reasons even though it violates mail standards Use this only if you feel that it is necessary and for novice users where Jook is more i
40. s and should never be used for administrative requests If you have forgotten everything send a message to mailinglist hel xample org for the list mailinglist example org Ifthe instructions returned do not help you solve the problem send a message to mailinglist owner example org for human help forwarding a message from the list and including any relevant information If you want to interact administratively with the ezmlm mailing list mailinglist example org send an empty message contents and subject are ignored to mailinglist command example org replacing command with the desired command For some commands you can add arguments Here are a few examples which will be discussed further below mailinglist subscribe example org Subscribe me ezmlm will send you a confirmation request and once you reply to it a message confirming that you are a subscriber mailinglist subscribe user gol com example org Subscribe user gol com Here the default subscriber address the one you send from is overridden by an argument to the subscribe command To subscribe any address of type user name host dom just replace the in the address with and add it after a hyphen to the command In this case mailinglist subscribe user name host dom example org Of course ezmlm will ask user name host dom to confirm the request mailinglist unsubscribe example org Unsubscribe me ezmlm will send a confirmation request to your
41. send a message to mailinglist example org Any message accepted at this address is sent to all list subscribers Due to the efficiency of ezmlm you usually get back the message you sent to the list within a few minutes Of course this is true only if you are a subscriber Most ezmlm lists require that you specify a Subject a few words that give everyone an idea what your message is about This is a good thing since many subscribers automatically delete mailing list messages without subject Conversely a good subject causes those interested able to help with your comment problem to read the message If you send a message without a subject ezmlm will send it back to you with an error message ezmlm also rejects messages to the list if the subject is a single command word only such as subscribe or help These are almost always misdirected commands from novice users Instead of flames from many subscribers the sender gets an informative error message As you know your should send mail to mailinglist unsubscribe example org to unsubscribe from the list mailinglist example org and a message to mailinglist help example org to get help and command information The list owner may place additional restrictions on messages to the list ezmlm allows rejection of messages that are not from subscribers that are too long short or that contain certain MIME parts If your message is not acceptable by these criteria ez
42. st two digits matching the version of the package Thus you should always get the documentation matching the first two digits xx in 0 xxy and there chose the highest y available This document comes with absolutely no warranties If there are errors or omissions in this manual please send corrections comments to the author The manual is intended to be complete for users and moderators administrators For list owners it is intended more as a summary and introduction to the FAQ Copyright and translations I reserve the right to sell a printed version of this document in the original English or in any other language You may distribute it in any other way even for money and of course you may give away a printed version If you make modifications you must retain the original copyright notice and identify clearly the sections you ve modified I d prefer if you notified me of errors omissions so that I can improve this document myself If you translate this document you own the translation You may distribute your translation in any way including printed and for sale However I reserve the right to make and distribute an independent translation These restrictions are intended to encourage translation while making it possible to use this text in e g a printed book for sale and publish such a book in any language The remainder of this notice is intended to make it as easy as possible to disseminate this document in the wonderf
43. t A format specifier can be used with the ezmlm get 1 f switch to override this v returns MIME with all headers and r a rfc1153 like non MIME format see More information You can use DIR digheaders to specify the message headers included for archive excerpts when using the m default format 3 5 The ezmIm archive ezmlm mailing lists are by default set up to keep an archive of all the messages sent to the list This archive is used to create digests Users can also access messages in the archive using the get thread and index addresses see above If the users would like to receive messages in a non default format they may do so by adding a format specifier to the command address name Thus to receive messages 45 65 from mailinglist example org in the v virgin MIME with all headers format the user would send a message to mailinglist getv45 65 example org 3 6 Restricting list usage ezmlm mailing lists can be set up with many restrictions both for posts and archive access Through customization of ezmlm there are many variations The more common ones are accessible through ezmlm make 1 switches when the list is created or modified see More information Placing restrictions on messages to the list By default ezmlm rejects all messages that have an empty subject or a subject consisting of a command name such as subscribe only The lists will also reject messages that do not ha
44. t in the digest is a table of contents with subjects message numbers and authors Messages are enclosed as attachments so that a MIME capable mail reader will allow you to see them as individual messages This way you can easily follow up on a post even from the digest The owner may chose to use a non MIME single message format instead This is most often done on old lists where the subscribers are used to that format and unaware or due to deficient mail readers unable to appreciate the advantages of the MIME format Pegasus Mail and Mutt are free programs that do a good job The digest of a list list is called list digest and the commands are the same as for the main list Thus to subscribe to mailinglist digest example org the digest of mailinglist example org send a message to mailinglist digest subscribe example org or to subscribe the address jonesi softx com send to mailinglist digest subscribe jonesj soft com example org Of course ezmlm will send a confirmation request and then a message notifying the user that s he is a subscriber If the list owner has chosen to restrict posts and archive access to subscribers digest subscribers are automatically given the same privilege 1 9 Unsubscribing from an ezmlm digest list You unsubscribe to the digest in the same manner as you unsubscribe from the main list see Unsubscribing from an ezmlm list but using the digest list name Thus to unsubscribe your current add
45. trator can add remove your address from the list of subscribers Sometimes you may want to subscribe an address other than the one you are sending from Let s say you re sitting at john example net and that all your mail is forwarded here from harold example com when you are not in the office You d like harold example com to be the subscriber so that you get the messages at work To do this send mail to mailinglist subscribe harold example com example org ezmlm will send the confirmation request to harold example com which will be forwarded and reach you at john example net When you reply harold example com is added as a subscriber The ezmlm verification mechanism tests the only relevant issue That the person at the subscription address really wants to be a subscriber After the confirmation reply is received ezmlm will send a message to the subscription address to let the recipient know that s he is a subscriber Some ezmlm mailing lists may use subscription moderation Subscription to these lists is identical to the process described above except that after confirmation the request is passed on to the list moderator s You become a subscriber only after one of the moderators has approved your request If you want to send any additional information to the moderator do so in your confirmation message ezmlm will notify you once you are a subscriber 1 4 Unsubscribing from an ezmlm mailing list You ve guessed it alr
46. ul world of free software Copyright 1997 1998 1999 Fred Lindberg lindberg id wustl edu amp Fred B Ringel fredr rivertown net This page was last built on 10 3 99 1 26 47 PM on the MacOs Comments Suggestions webmaster ezm m org
47. ve the list address in the To or Ce header This removes the majority of spam without affecting normal posts In addition lists may be configured to reject messages below or above a certain size measured on the message body ezmlm can also reject messages containing certain MIME content types It may make sense to reject messages consisting only of text rtf on lists with users on multiple platforms many of which would be unable to read the message Similarly restricting the maximal size of messages to e g 20000 bytes may save inexperienced users from quoting entire digests or sending large programs or such as an attachment All these restrictions are handled by ezmlm reject 1 in the DIR editor file in the list directory see More information Placing restrictions on who can subscribe To set up lists with subscription moderation so that each subscribe request must be approved by a moderator use the ezmlm make 1 s switch Lists set up with the ezmlm make 1 u switch allow posts only from subscribers of the list or list digest Use of the m switch makes all posts moderated see below A combination of these switches um has a special meaning posts from subscribers go directly to the list whereas posts from others are sent out for moderation Also messages that are ignored neither accepted nor rejected by the moderators usually result in an informative error message to the sender after about 5 days
48. ving MTA For messages that remain in the queue the sending MTA will retry the transmission After a set period of time the message will be bounced i e returned as undeliverable If the recipient does not exist which may be caused by a misconfiguration of e g the domain naming service the message is returned immediately as recipient unknown ezmlm uses the subscriber address and message number encoded within the sender address to keep track of which message have bounced for which recipient Since messages can bounce for a variety of reasons ezmlm doesn t remove a subscriber from the list after a single bounce Rather it waits about 12 days after the first bounce then sends a warning message to the subscriber The warning message lists the numbers of the messages missed The user can retrieve these from the archive If this warning message bounces as well ezmlm waits another 12 days then sends a probe First when this message bounces is the subscriber removed from the subscriber database This mechanism guarantees that a subscriber won t be removed due to a temporary error while assuring that all non existent or permanently failing addresses will be removed eventually 3 12 Helping users unsubscribe Some users never learn and don t want to spend the time to figure out how to unsubscribe As a remote administrator you can unsubscribe them entirely on your own see Remote administration You can also do th
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