How to use Mailing Lists in the EMWAC Internet Mail Services
The SMTP Delivery Agent will manage mailing lists. This page explains:
Use the EMWAC IMS Control Panel Applet to create
a new mailing list called (say) foobar.
Now, messages directed to foobar@yourmachine.yourdomain
will be sent to members of the new mailing list (except of course that a newly-created mailing
list will not yet have any members).
Anyone can join any mailing list maintained by SMTPDS. To join a list called foobar,
send a message to foobar-request@yourmachine.yourdomain, containing:
SUBSCRIBE
in the message body. SMTPDS will respond with a mail message indicating the success or
failure of your attempt.
If a list is moderated and Moderator Control Join is enabled, any SUBSCRIBE message to this list
will be forwarded to the moderator. The moderator can determine whhether the subscribe
request should be honoured, and if so can add the address manually.
If you wish to subscribe under another mail address, include a "Reply-to:" header in your mail message.
This is the address which will be added to the mailing list, and the response to your command will be
sent to that address.
To leave a mailing list foobar, send a mail message to
foobar-request@yourmachine.yourdomain, containing:
UNSUBSCRIBE
in the message body.
If a list is moderated and Moderator Control Leave is enabled, any UNSUBSCRIBE message to this list
will be forwarded to the moderator. The moderator can determine whhether the unsubscribe
request should be honoured, and if so can remove the address manually.
If you have changed your mail address, and wish to unsubscribe from a list with your old address before
subscribing with your new address, then include a "Reply-to: oldname@old.domain" header in your mail message.
oldname@old.domain will be removed from the mailing list (but the response to your command will be
sent to that old address).
To remove a mailing list, use the Delete button in the Lists page in the EMWAC IMS applet.
When SMTPDS receives a message in which the domain name of the recipient address corresponds to
the domain name of the system on which SMTPDS is running, it assumes the message is for a local user
or for a mailing list.
It first of all checks the mailing lists directory to see if a subdirectory with a matching name
exists. If so, the message is temporarily "delivered"
to that directory. If not, it assumes that the message is for a local user. (This means that
if a mailing list has the same name as a local user, messages will get sent to the mailing
list and not to the user.)
SMTPDS will "explode" messages delivered to the mailing lists by sending them onward
to all list members. It handles messages delivered to -request directories
by parsing them for commands and creating a "Journal" file which it then
returns to the sender.
Commands understood by the mailing list processor are as follows.
- HELP
- Produces summary of commands
- JOIN [listname]
- Subscribe to mailing list
- LEAVE [listname]
- Unsubscribe from mailing list
- STOP
- Stop processing commands (eg to avoid processing a signature)
- SUBSCRIBE [listname]
- Subscribe to mailing list
- UNSUBSCRIBE [listname]
- Unsubscribe from mailing list
