CHAPTER SIX - MAIL MANAGER & MAIL LISTS

MAIL MANAGER:

You can access your Mail Manager by going to your Control Panel:

http://www.yourdomainname.com/menu then enter your username and
password. Once the Control Panel is open, click on Mail Manager.

Inside this area you can setup all of your email items...like
auto-responders, forwarded mail, and pop accounts.

Initially you will see a mailbox that is named default. DO NOT DELETE this
email account as it is the one the system recognizes as your default email
box.

To create a new pop3 email account, click on New Address. You will be
taken to another window where you will be asked for a username and
password for the new email address. The username will act as the email
address. ie.:

Username: support
Password: something
Re-enter Password: something

Click on add. You have now created an email address
support@yourdomain.com.

MAIL LISTS

To set up a new mailing list?

(1) Go to your mail manager http://yourdomain.com/menu
(2) Create a list in Mail Manager by clicking on "New List".
(3) Add the name of the list. You'll get a message giving you instructions,
repeated below.
(4) Click "edit list" and you're asked to add the maintainer, password, and
max # e-mails archived.

- The maintainer is the e-mail of the person in charge of the list
- The password is the list password
- Max # e-mails archived is the number of the most recent "back-issues"
to be saved, and sent when someone requests the most recent e-mails
sent to your mailing list.

From the Mail Manager, you have access to "Mailing List Manager," also
called "Xcommand" (from the name of the program in UNIX). This is a
mailing list administration program.

How do I subscribe to a list?

From email:

To subscribe to the mailinglist, simply send a message with the word
"subscribe" in the Subject: field to the -request address of that list.

To: testlist-request@domainname.com
Subject: subscribe

To subscribe to the digest:

A digest sends all messages at once, in one big message, rather than
sending each one individually. To subscribe the digest, simply send a
message with the word "subscribe" in the Subject: field to the following
address.

To: testlist-d-request@domainname.com
Subject: subscribe

How do I send an email to the list?

To send email to the mailinglist, write to the following address:

To: testlist@domainname.com

How do I unsubscribe to a list?

To unsubscribe from the mailinglist, simply send a message with the
word "unsubscribe" in the Subject: field to the -request address of that
list.

To: testlist-request@domainname.com
Subject: unsubscribe

To unsubscribe from the digest:

To unsubscribe from the digest, write an e-mail like this.

To: testlist-d-request@domainname.com
Subject: unsubscribe

How do I administer the list?

The Mailing List Manager (Xcommand), available from the Mail Manager
(domainname.com/menu), allows the administrator of the list to:

- Show List of Subscribers
- Show List Log
- Wipe List Log
- Search list of subscribers for a near match
- Directly subscribe/unsubscribe a user

You can get to the Mailing List Manager by selecting the list from under
'Edit List' in the Mail Manager, then selecting 'Mailing List Manager'. You
will need to know the Maintainer email and password to administer the
list. The results of the commands will be sent to the list maintainer's email
address.

I would like to set up a newsletter. Can I get SmartList to do this?

Yes! When you use SmartList to send out an electronic newsletter, you
limit the submissions accepted to yourself, and tell SmartList not to
accept "foreign" submissions. Anyone who signs up will still receive the
list but now cannot send to it. If you want all your lists to be newsletters,
you can skip the delink step. If you're not sure, go ahead and delink this
one.

For the list "listname,"

* Edit the rc.custom file and the rc.init file.

vi /home/username/domainname-mail/listname/rc.custom
uncomment (delete the #s) foreign_submit
comment out (precede with a #) foreign_submit=yes

vi /home/username/domainname-mail/listname/rc.init
uncomment (delete #s) foreign_submit
comment out (precede with #) foreign_submit=yes

* Delink the accept file:

cd/home/username/domainname-mail
type
.bin/delink listname/accept

When these steps are completed, the owner may send to the list by
e-mailing to listname@domainname.com. If anyone else attempts to mail
to the list, it will be sent to the owner rather than the link. Since the owner
is now the only address in the accept file for the list, no other
submissions will be accepted. (You may want to type vi accept to be sure
no one else snuck in there.)

NB: editing the rc.init file means that all lists created thereafter will also
function as newsletters. The hard link would have to be broken for rc.init
for a particular list to change this without changing this for all other lists
also.

I already have a list of addresses for my mailing list. How can I subscribe
the entire list?

The 'dist' file is the distribution list -- the list of recipients. To add a
pre-existing list of recipients, copy it into the dist file:

/home/username/domainname-mail/listname/dist

You can add a short list by hand or by cut-and-paste. For a really long list,
you may want to download the dist file, edit it using a word processing
program, save it as text or ASCII, and then upload the edited file.

The following conditions apply:

- One subscriber per line
- Empty lines are allowed
- The mail address of the subscriber must be the first word on the line
- Comments may follow the address (but separated from the address by at
least one whitespace character)
-Everything preceding the line containing: "Only addresses below this line
can be automatically removed" is write-protected from changes (i.e. these
addresses can never be automatically/accidentally unsubscribed)
- If the line: "Only addresses below this line can be automatically
removed" is not present at all, automatic unsubscriptions to this list are
impossible
- New subscribers will always appear on the line immediately following
the last filled entry in the dist file.

Some sample entries (the preferred format):

joe@some.where joe@some.where (some comment) joe@some.where
(some comment) (some more comments) Depreciated, but allowed:

<joe@some.where>
<joe@some.where> some comment
<joe@some.where> (some comment)

Not allowed:

(some comment) joe@some.where
some comment <joe@some.where>

Note: adding to the dist file for a list automatically adds to the accept file
as well, unless you have turned off foreign submissions.

How do I create a moderated list?

A moderated list means that every submission to the list goes through
your list maintainer before it actually gets posted to the list.

(1) First create a file named "moderators." It should contain the fully
qualified mail addresses of all the moderators for this list (i.e. just local
usernames are not sufficient, at least include an @host or host!)

(2) Then uncomment the appropriate "moderated_flag" line in rc.custom

From then on all mail that does not contain an "Approved:
the_address_of_one_of_the_moderators" field is forwarded to all the
moderators.

One of the moderators should then resend the mail to the list after adding
an "Approved: his_own_address" field to the header (and possibly
editing the contents of the mail). It will be no problem if several
moderators resubmit the same submission concurrently, since the
mailinglist will filter out duplicates anyway (i.e. only the first one will go
out and be archived).

Where can I get more information about SmartList?

SmartList Archives:
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~casterln/smartlist-arc/maillist.html

The FAQ is available in html and text format at
http://www.hartzler.net/smartlist/

There is also a smartlist mailing list. To Subscribe:
Send a blank e-mail to "smartlist-request@informatik.rwth-aachen.de" with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.

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