ListProcessor®

List-Owner Manual©

VIII. File Archives as Lists

1. Introduction

This List-Owner Reference Manual provides an overview to the list-owner commands of the CREN® ListProcessor® list- and file-management software, also known as ListProc®. The commands documented in this reference are not generally available to subscribers who do not own the list affected by the command being used.

This Owner's manual is one of four documents of which list owners should be aware. All are available via anonymous ftp and Gopher from info.cren.net in the /listproc directory. Each file is available in Postscript (the .ps file extension), RTF (the .rtf file extension) and plain text (no file extension). These files are listed below (base file names are enclosed in parenthesis):

1. The List Owner's Manual (ownerman) explains in detail how to manage a list.
2. The List Owner's Reference Card (ownercard) is a short reminder of the material covered in the Manual.
3. The ListProcessor User's Manual (userman) is a detailed explanation for users of how to interact with the list processor.
4. The User's Reference Card (usercard) is a short reminder of material covered in the Manual.

It is strongly recommended that you, as list owner, obtain and read all four documents. You should be familiar with end-user commands, which are not covered in this document. It is recommended that you either print this Owner's Manual out or use a multi-window program to read it so that you can more easily refer to different sections.

In this reference, ListProcessor commands are shown in this typeface, with italics used for any command options and arguments which are to be replaced by the user. The minimum command abbreviations are in UPPERCASE. The actual commands are case-insensitive. For example, the command SUB is the same as sub or subscribe. Optional arguments and keywords are enclosed in brackets ([...]) and alternatives separated by a vertical bar ( | ), both of which must be omitted when the actual command is used. The list explore@listproc.net has been created for experimenting with ListProc. The term "local lists" refers to lists hosted by the ListProcessor with which you are communicating; "remote" lists are those hosted by other ListProcessors. Commands which relate to remote lists are forwarded to the appropriate ListProcessor when there is adequate information.

2. What is ListProcessor?

The Internet provides thousands of discussion groups via e-mail. Participants in these discussion groups place themselves on mailing lists, called “lists” for short, in order to be able to send messages to and receive messages from the various lists. ListProcessor, ListProc for short, is a powerful mailing list agent that keeps track of thousands of people subscribed to any number of mailing lists. When a user subscribes to a list, that person’s name and e-mail address are automatically added to the list of subscribers. The new subscriber will receive a form letter of welcome telling about the list. Then all mail sent to the list by other subscribers will be sent to the new subscriber also. If the new subscriber wants to reply to these messages and sends in a response to a message, the message will be sent out to everyone who is subscribed to the list. Users may post messages, review members of lists, review the configuration set up of lists, etc.

ListProc allows full control over the list and its configuration to the list owner, freeing up the system manager from having to make major modifications for the list owners when needed. ListProc is also a powerful file archiver, allowing search and retrieval of text files based on regular expressions and e-mail retrieval of binary files automatically uuencoded and divided into manageable sized portions. It is automated, and eliminates the need for user intervention and maintenance of multiple aliases of the form "list, list-owner, list-request", etc. There is support provided for public and private hierarchical archives, moderated and non-moderated lists, peer lists, peer servers, private lists, address aliasing, news connections and gateways, mail queuing, digests, list ownership, owner preferences, crash recovery, batch processing, configurable headers, regular expressions, archive searching, and live user connections via TCP/IP.

 

4. What Are the Responsibilities of a List Owner?

List owners are individuals responsible for list administration via mail commands. Thus, list owners may be remotely located. Each list has to have at least one list owner. These owners may be different than the system's manager, and have special privileges: they may issue commands on users' behalf (add a user, remove a user, etc.) overriding system restrictions set on regular users (including overriding disabled commands), obtain reports about the lists they administer, append to the ".aliases" and ".ignored" files, change the welcoming (".welcome") and informative (".info") messages, as well as other system files such as the aliases file (".aliases"), the ".ignored" file, the subscribers file (".subscribers"), the news file (".news") and the peers file (".peers"). In addition, they may moderate their lists and they receive various error messages pertaining to their lists. All administrative commands are author authenticated and password protected. Whenever a message cannot be author authenticated, the list's owner and manager are notified. On the other hand, list owners may not add restricted users; this service can be provided by contacting the system's manager. List owners may also receive copies of user commands and/or error messages such as invalid postings, syntax errors on commands, etc.

List owners may assign various parts of these responsibilities to other people. List owners may assign moderators, whose function is to approve messages and guide the on-line discussion, subscription managers, whose function is to add or remove individuals to the list, and recipients of error messages, whose function is to contact users who generate error messages by submitting invalid commands and educate them as to the error, also to remove users whose addresses are no longer valid.

 

5. Special Files that ListProc Uses

ListProc makes use of a number of text files during the course of its operation. Some files, such as the list’s config file, are changeable via commands to ListProc and are not editable, but others can be requested from ListProc using the EDIT command, edited, and replaced using the PUT command (see EDIT and PUT in the command section below). These seven files all have filenames starting with a dot "." and are .aliases, .ignored, .info, .news, .peers, .subscribers, and .welcome. When requesting any of these files for editing from ListProc you do not include the dot in the filename in the command line, so the discussion below will not include the dot in the filename in order to avoid confusion.

The alias file allows the list owner to rewrite incoming e-mail addresses. Due to the wide variation in the manner in which different hosts are set up, it is possible that e-mail can come in to listproc with a different return address than the sender’s real address. For example, if mail comes in from BITNET there is no way of knowing which gateway will be used for the mail. The mail may come in as user%node.bitnet@interbit.cren.net on one occasion and from user%node.bitnet@pucc.princeton.edu on another occasion. A user can likely get back a error message saying that he/she is not subscribed to a particular list. In order to get the ListProc to accept the address user@node.bitnet no matter what gateway it comes through an alias can be set up in the alias file.

The ignored file filters out messages sent by certain users. You may, for example, want to prevent error messages coming from postmaster@anywhere.org from being posted to your list. Or perhaps you have a particularly annoying individual whose messages you want filtered out. By putting these addresses in the ignored file you prevent anything coming from these addresses from going out to your list.

Two very important files are the welcome and info files. The welcome file is a message automatically sent out to all new subscribers to a list. The info file is sent out to anyone requesting information from ListProc about your list. Both files should give the list name, names and e-mail addresses of list owners or moderators, purpose of the list, and any special rules and regulations pertaining to the list. The welcome file should additionally contain some welcome message.

The subscribers file contains a list of all subscribers to a list, their e-mail addresses, names, and switches for their subscriptions such as concealed, ack, noack, digest, etc. The subscribers file is one file that can be EDITed or can be modified by using ListProc’s internal commands such as ADD, DELETE, SET, etc. The subscribers file must be in a specific format. If you chose to edit that file and then replace it with an edited version and if your text editor makes a minor reformatting such as word-wrap or if you make a small error in one character in your editing, then the newly placed subscribers file will not only not work, it will cause ListProc to crash. For this reason it is important that you not try to edit the subscribers file, but instead use ListProc’s commands to modify the subscribers file.

Lists can be gatewayed to newsgroups; that is, postings to a particular newsgroup will be forwarded to a mailing list and postings to the mailing list will be placed in the newsgroup. One way gateways are also possible in which postings to the list go to the newsgroup but no postings to the newsgroup will go to the list. Or the opposite one way gateway can be set up allowing only postings from newsgroup to list. The news file contains the information necessary for establishing the gateway between newsgroup and list. Peer lists are mailing lists that are subscribed to one or more mailing lists at local or remote sites. They handle local distribution of messages just like any other list and also distribute messages that originate in the peer lists. The peers file is a special file which coordinates the peering of lists. The syntax and use of peer files and news files is beyond the scope of this owner manual and can be found in the ListProcessor site manager manual. It is suggested that the peers and news files should be edited only by the ListProc system manager, not by list owners.

 

7. Configuring Your List From the Beginning.

The first thing you need to do when your list is set up by the system administrator is configure it and create WELCOME and INFO files. This section will discuss some of the more important issues to consider when configuring your list and refer you to sections of the Command Reference section for commands related to each item discussed.

a) It is important to have WELCOME and INFO files in most cases. The INFO file serves the purpose of informing potential users what your list is all about. The INFO file should have a full description and any restrictions imposed on the list membership. Potential subscribers should be able to get the INFO file and decide upon reading it whether they want to subscribe to your list. The WELCOME file should also tell what the list is about but additionally should give instructions for how to get in touch with list owners and/or moderators and give any rules and regulations of membership in the list. For creating INFO and WELCOME files see section 6.A.1 EDIT and section 6.A.2 PUT.

b) Do you want your subscriptions to your list to be open, closed, or owner-controlled? Open means that anyone can subscribe to your list without needing your prior approval. Subscription is by simply sending a message to the ListProcessor asking to be added to the list. Owner-controlled means that all subscription commands from users get forwarded to someone who you designate as your subscription manager. If you, the owner, do not designate a subscription manager, then you, the owner, become the subscription manager by default. Closed means that no one can submit a subscribe command to your list. You, the owner, may add people to your list but if anyone tries to send a subscribe command they will get back a message saying that the list is closed to subscriptions. For configuring your list as OPEN, CLOSED, or OWNER-CONTROLLED see section 6.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password OPEN-SUBSCRIPTIONS, section 6.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password CLOSED-SUBSCRIPTIONS, and section 6.x.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password OWNER-SUBSCRIPTIONS.

c) Do you want your list to be moderated or unmoderated? Moderated means that all messages sent to the list by subscribers must be approved by the list moderator before anyone else can see them. There are two types of moderation. In moderated-no-edit the moderator is presented with the message and a tag number. The moderator may then approve or discard the message as is. In moderated-edit the moderator may not only approve the message but also may edit it before sending it back to be posted to the list. Unmoderated means that all messages sent to the list automatically get forwarded to everyone subscribed to the list without the moderator's approval. If you, the owner, do not designate a list moderator, then you, the owner, become the subscription manager by default. For configuring your list as moderated or unmoderated see section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password MODERATED-EDIT, section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password MODERATED-NO-EDIT, and section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password UNMODERATED.

d) Do you want your list to be hidden or visible? Hidden means that anyone requesting a list of all lists known to the server will not see your list. Visible means that people requesting information about lists supported by your server will see your list. You can have a visible list and still restrict the amount of information people can obtain about your list. For configuring your list as hidden or visible see section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password HIDDEN LIST and section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password VISIBLE-LIST.

e) How much information can people get about your list? Every list has an info file, a one line description, a series of attributes or settings, and a list of its subscribers. You can restrict access to each individual piece of this information, either only to list subscribers, to the general public, or to no one. To control who can review your list see section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password REVIEW-TO- To control who can obtain your list statistics see section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password STATISTICS-TO- To determine whether anyone can see a list of your subscribers see section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password DEFAULT CONCEAL YES|NO

f) Will there be archives of your list, and if so, who will have access to list archives? In addition to archives of material sent out by your list you can also have archives of supplementary material. You control access and determine whether a password is needed to access these materials. For information on configuring archives of the list messages see section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password ARCHIVE To determine who can get access to the archives see section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password ARCHIVES-TO-

g) How much information do you want to get about your list's operation? Getting list information and error messages is discussed in section 6.B.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password DEFAULT PREFERENCES and in section 6.F.x SET PREFERENCES with the following options for the preferences:

1. If your list is open, do you still want to know about all new subscribers? CCSUBSCRIBE CCUNSUBSCRIBE

2. Every time someone sends a request for a list of recipients, for information, for list statistics for a review of the list or a run command, do you want to receive a copy of the ListProc’s response? CCREVIEW CCSTATISTICS CCINFORMATION CCRECIPIENTS

3. Every time a message comes in from someone in your 'ignore' file or someone not subscribed to your list if private, do you want to know? CCIGNORE

4. Do you want copies of all error messages? CCERRORS CCALL

These questions must be considered seriously because the more information you request, the more mail you will be getting. If you want all of these informational messages and you have an active list, you could get hundreds of informational messages filling up your mailer each day. You can designate someone else as recipient of all error messages if you want error messages monitored but cannot take the time to do it yourself. To designate someone as recipient of error messages see section 6.c.x.x CONFIGURATION listname password DELIVERY-ERRORS-TO address

g) Is your list going to be mailed out as a digest or not? A digest is a group of many messages sent out together in a single 'digest' message and has the advantage of not filling up your users' mailboxes with large amounts of mail from an active list. On the other hand, it delays the sending of individual messages until enough messages have been received to make up a digest. In a less active list this may be undesirable. To determine whether your list is sent out as a digest or not, see section 6.B.x CONFIGURATION listname password DIGEST frequency when

Keep in mind when a new list is set up that listproc has some built in defaults. These defaults may be changed by the ListProcessor manager.

ListProc defaults are listed below with short explanations. Longer explanations can be found in the various command sections below dealing with each of these options. ListProc distribution defaults are:

stats-to-all The general public can request list statistics

review-to-all The general public can review a list’s settings

auto-delete Automatically delete users whose mail bounces

digest-daily Digests are sent out daily if mailmode digest is chosen

send-by-all Anyone can send mail to the list whether subscribed or not

no-archives The list is not archived

open-subscription Anyone requesting a subscription to the list is added

Everything is open, that is the default list allows maximum access to all users. If you want a restricted list you must change those defaults.

 

8. Command Reference.

Here is a complete description of the set of list management-related commands recognized by ListProcessor and examples of how to submit commands to the ListProcessor. List managers should also obtain the User Reference for a brief description of user commands and the User Manual for more detailed explanation of user commands.

Everything appearing in [] below is optional; everything appearing in <> is mandatory; all arguments are case insensitive. The vertical bar ("|") is used as a logical OR operator between the arguments. Please note that the brackets or braces or parentheses themselves are NEVER a part of the command. In the syntax examples below, the word "list" must be replaced by your list name, the word "password" must be replaced by your list password, the word “options” must be replaced by any options for the command, and the word “args”, short for arguments, must be replaced by any additional arguments that must be added after the options. Commands may be abbreviated, but you must give at least as many characters as needed to distinguish the command from other commands or at least enter the first three characters.

All lists have four levels of management commands: (1) the ListProcessor administrator, (2) list owners, who have ultimate control over the list,(3) list moderators, who do the day-to-day list management, i.e., receive messages to REVIEW, APPROVE, DISCARD, or FORWARD reviewed messages, and(4) subscription managers and error message recipients, both of whom have access only to commands relating to subscriptions to the list; specifically, they can ADD, DELETE, SET ...FOR, and REVIEW; however, error message recipients do not receive commands to subscribe to closed lists which subscription managers receive.

Any command which spans more than one line must have an ampersand (&) at the end of each line to indicate that the command is continued on the next line.

Recognized commands are:

A. List configuration commands

EDIT

PUT

REPORTS

CONFIGURATION

B. Commands affecting list subscriptions

ADD

ALIAS

DELETE

IGNORE

LOCK

SET

SYSTEM

UNLOCK

C. Commands affecting posting of messages

APPROVE

DISCARD

HOLD

FREE

D. File archives as lists

AFD

FUI

 

1. List Setup Commands
1. EDIt list password filename [-nolock]

Obtain specified file for editing; filename can be one of:

subscribers, aliases, news, peers, ignored, info, or welcome. (For further explanation of these files, see section on Special Files that ListProc Uses above.)

List will be automatically locked to list-specific commands until the list is UNLOCKed, a new file has been PUT, or -nolock is specified in the EDIT command. It is strongly recommended that list owners wanting to use the EDIt command on the subscribers file do so only for the purpose of examining the file and not for the purpose of modifying it. Small errors in modifying the subscribers file will cause ListProc to crash, bringing down ALL local lists. When examining a file, the -nolock option should be used.

Examples:

Let’s assume there is a list called "mylist" and the owner’s list management password is "beqrt". The owner of the list wants to edit the info file. The owner of "mylist" sends the following commands:

ed mylist beqrt info The info file from "mylist" will be sent to the owner; the list is locked until the info file is replaced or unlocked with an unlock command.

The owner of mylist now wants to modify the welcome file. The owner of "mylist" sends the following commands:

ED mylist beqrt welcome -nolock The welcome file from "mylist" will be sent to the owner; the list is not locked.

2. PUT list password filename [args]

Replace system files. Filename is as in EDIT command. These files are obtained with the EDIT command, can then be edited and replaced with the PUT command.

If the PUT command is for an alias or ignore file the [args] consists of the address(es). When PUTting a file, its contents start immediately after the command and span the entire message. No other commands can follow a PUT and no signature should be in a PUT command. Neither an alias nor an ignore file can have comments in the file. It is strongly recommended that list owner NOT use the PUT command on a subscribers file because of damage that may be done to ListProc from an improperly edited subscribers file. All modifications desired to the subscribers file can be easily and safely done using ListProc’s internal commands such as ADD, DELETE, SET, etc.

Examples:

Let’s use the example from the EDIT command above of a list called “mylist” and the owner’s list management password is “beqrt”. The owner of mylist now wants to replace the info and welcome files with new ones. The owner of “mylist” sends the following commands separately:

put mylist beqrt info

Mylist is a discussion of ideas related to what I think about life.

PUT mylist beqrt welcome

Welcome to Mylist. We will be discussing life in general and in particular.

In the first example above the list’s info file will be replaced with a file saying that "Mylist is a discussion of ideas related to what I think about life." In the second example the list’s welcome file will be replaced with a file saying "Welcome to Mylist. We will be discussing life in general and in particular." Notice that these are sent as two separate commands in two separate e-mail messages, and not in a single e-mail message. This is because all information put into the message after the command line is incorporated into the file. If the owner’s mailer automatically appended the owner’s signature to the message then that signature will be included in the file being placed.

3. REPorts list password

Obtain all reports about the specified local list.

4. CONfiguration listname password [option [args]] &

[,option [args] ...]] [,option [args] ...]]

Set a list's configuration options. The command, CONFIGURATION, without options, returns the list's current settings. If the configuration command spans more than one line then each line must end in an ampersand (&) in order to indicate that the command is continued on the next line. Options are a comma-separated list of one or more of the following keywords:

1. ARChive [password] [messages|digests]
2. NO-ARChive

Turn on/off archiving of lists. Specify a password for subscribers' access to the archives and whether single messages are to be archived or digests. The command ARCHIVE with no options results in non-password protected archive with default archiving of individual messages. If the owner wants to specify digests or messages without a password, a dash (-) is used in place of the password. If the owner wants to remove a password and not replace it, an empty string delimited by single or double quotes ("" or '') will remove it. The directory, archive name, file name of the archived material, and whether archives are stored compressed or not are set by the list manager by request from the list owner. By default every list’s messages are stored in the default archive directory with the archive named after the list and no password. File names can be any letters of the alphabet, numbers, the percent character, and the underscore character. Naming may be by any one of a number of character sequences:

-The contents of a ARCHIVE-NAME header line. This method cannot be used if archiving digests.

-The current message count.

-Any combination of day of month, week of month, month name, and year.

-Any combination of issue number and volume number, which is extracted from a line saying Volume # Number #.

-The first word of the first non-blank line of the file.

-Digest number.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo archive erty messages

will cause the list "mylist" to be archived as individual messages which can be obtained from ListProc with a GET command (See GET below) using the password erty.

configuration mylist foo archive - digest

will cause the list "mylist" to be archived as digests according to the default digesting (See DEFAULT below) with no password required to obtain copies of the archived material.

3. ARCHIVES-TO-ALL
4. ARCHIVES-TO-OWNERS
5. ARCHIVES-TO-SUBSCRIBERS

Specify who can request material from the archives. ALL: anyone can request index and archive material. OWNERS: only owners may request archive material and index. SUBSCRIBERS: only owners and subscribers may request index and archive material.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo archives-to-subscribers

will allow only subscribers to the list "mylist" to obtain archives of the list.

6. AUTO-DELETE-SUBSCRIBERS
7. NO-AUTO-DELETE-SUBSCRIBERS

ListProcessor has the capability of automatically deleting from a list any users whose mail bounces. This allows for automatic removal of subscribers who have lost or turned off their e-mail accounts, but did not unsubscribe from your lists, or people who for some reason their e-mail addresses become unreachable. These commands turn on and off automatic deletion of subscribers whose mail bounces. When a user is automatically deleted the list owner is notified. If someone other than the list owner is defined as a recipient of system error messages, then that person is notified of the automatic removal of a user.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo auto-delete-subscribers

will allow ListProc to automatically delete any subscriber whose mail bounces. If a list is set to auto-delete-subscribers then the list owner should be aware of the fact that some list subscribers will occasionally complain of not having received any mail from the list recently. Users frequently are not aware when their home system is rejecting mail. Deleting subscribers whose mail bounces is a useful function because bounce mail takes up bandwidth and wastes CPU time. On a small machine with a slow connection to the Internet, large amounts of bounce mail can significantly slow down service on all the machine’s local lists.

8. CLOSED-SUBSCRIPTIONS
9. OPEN-SUBSCRIPTIONS
10. OWNER-SUBSCRIPTIONS

When closed, the list will not accept any new subscribers at all. However, the owners may still submit an ADD command. When open, the list will automatically accept all people who send in subscribe requests. Although the owner does not have to approve new subscribers in an open list, the owner can receive notification of new subscribers added to a list; see SET ccpreferences. OWNER-SUBSCRIPTIONS makes a list private. When a user sends a subscribe command for the list to ListProc a message is sent to the subscription manager notifying of the request for subscription. Subscriptions are then approved by the designated people, either subscription managers or owners. OWNER-SUBSCRIPTIONS turns on ARCHIVES-TO-SUBSCRIBERS, REVIEW-TO-SUBSCRIBERS, STATISTICS-TO-SUBSCRIBERS, and SEND-TO-SUBSCRIBERS, all limiting access to information from the list to subscribers.

Example:

For a list named "mylist" whose owner password is "foo"

configuration mylist foo open-subscriptions

will allow ListProc to automatically add anyone sending a subscribe request without obtaining approval from the list subscription manager or owner.

configuration mylist foo closed-subscriptions

will cause ListProc to send a message to the person requesting a subscription to the list saying that no new subscriptions are being accepted at this time.

configuration mylist foo owner-subscriptions

will make a list private to subscriptions. The owner or designated subscription manager will have to manually ADD new subscribers.

11. WIDE-OPEN-LIST

Make a list visible, allows subscribers to add themselves to a list, allows anyone to post messages to the list, and allows anyone to request a review, statistics, or archives from a list.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo wide-open-list

has the same effect as sending a command to ListProc saying

configuration mylist foo open-subscriptions, unmoderated, &

review-to-all, statistics-to-all, archives-to-all.

12. COMMENT string
13. NO-COMMENT

Sets the one line list comment (description) string. To remove the comment send an empty string delimited by single or double quotes ("" or ''). Note that only the following characters are permitted in the comment string: All the alphabetic letters from a - Z including both upper and lower case, all the numbers from 0 - 9, and the following characters [ \ t + = : ; ' . , @ # % ! _ - ] while comment strings may NOT contain the following characters: < > ` * ? , \ n

(Please note that in this discussion the symbol \t is a combined symbol which stands for the tab character and not the separate characters slash-t. Likewise \n is a combined symbol which stands for the newline character.) If a comment string is to have a colon “:” then the colon must have an escape character “\” before it “\:”

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo comment MyList\: This is my list

The listing of all lists will say "mylist@machine.address MyList: This is my list". Additionally all mail coming from "mylist" will have the comment appended to the header, "MyList: This is my list".

14. DEFAULT mailmode option [mailmode option]

Set the default subscription options. Mailmode choices and options are:

15. DEFAULT address variable|fixed

- variable allows a subscriber to change addresses with a command sent from a different address than the one the user is subscribed from.

- fixed requires a subscriber to unsubscribe from the subscribed address and resubscribe from the new address.

16. DEFAULT mail ack|noack|postpone|digest

- ack means a subscriber will receive a copy of his/her posting.

- noack means a subscriber will not receive a copy of his/her posting.

- postpone means all mail to a subscriber will be held until the subscriber sends a command changing mailmode to something else.

- digest causes all messages to be sent out concatenated together in groups. The user can change this by sending a command requesting a different mailmode. For example, changing mailmode to ack will turn off digests for the individual user. In contrast, if the list is set to sending out all mail as digests because it was set that way using the DIGEST frequency command, then the individual user will be unable to change that designation.

17. DEFAULT password string

- sets a default user password. If not set a random password is assigned to new users.

18. DEFAULT conceal yes|no

- yes allows other people to see the user's name and e-mail address in a list of subscribers to a list.

- no prevents others from seeing user's s name and e-mail address.

19. DEFAULT preference CCoption

- determines which commands sent by users are copied to owners. CCoption can be one of: CCUNSUBSCRIBE, CCRECIPIENTS, CCINFORMATION, CCSTATISTICS, CCPRIVATE, CCRUN, CCIGNORE, CCERRORS, CCREVIEW, CCALL

When any user sends a command to the ListProcessor concerning a list the owner can be set up to receive a copy of the response. This is useful if owners want to keep track of who subscribes, unsubscribes, requests information, etc. or error messages sent out to users. The more ccoptions set, the more mail a list owner or designated recipient of ccoptions will receive. It may not be advisable to set ccall on a very active list because of the very large volume of mail that may ensue. The 'default preference' only effects owners that are added after the change is made, current owners must change their options using the SET preference command (see below).

A mailmode with an empty string as an option, designated by either two double quotes("") or two single quotes(''), causes the mailmode to revert back to the system default. The user can also revert to default with a SET mailmode command and no arguments.

Examples:

For a list named "mylist" whose owner password is "foo"

configuration mylist foo default address fixed

This will prevent any user from changing a subscribed address from another machine; it forces users to unsubscribe from their subscribed machine and resubscribe from the new address.

configuration mylist foo default mail ack

This will cause ListProc to return a copy of all messages posted to a list by any user to that subscriber as a way of acknowledging to the user that the message was sent out to the list.

configuration mylist foo default mail digest

This setting will cause the ListProcessor to mail out all messages as digests in the manner specified by the DIGEST command (See DIGEST below). Users can override this by sending in a SET listname MAIL ACK command or any other SET listname mail command.

configuration mylist foo default mail noack

With this option set, ListProc will not return a copy of all messages posted to a list by any user to that subscriber unless the subscriber uses the SET command to set his/her mailmode to ack. The subscriber’s messages will, however, go out to everyone else on the list.

configuration mylist foo default conceal yes

With this option set, ListProc will conceal the names and addresses of all subscribers to a list. In the event someone sends a REVIEW command to the ListProc, they will receive back the number of subscribers only.

config mylist foo default preference ccsubscribe, ccunsubscribe

With this option set, ListProc will forward all subscribe and signoff (unsubscribe) requests from users to the list owner or person designated to receive error messages (See DELIVERY-ERRORS-TO below). When this is not set by the list owner or by the ListProc site manager, the system default is for ccignore only.

20. DELIVERY-ERRORS-TO address [address]
21. REMOVE-ERRORS-TO address [address]

Specifies to which addresses copies of error messages are to be sent, and removes recipients of error messages. If no address is designated then all error messages will go to the list owner by default. "ERRORS-TO" recipients may send commands to ADD, DELETE, SET ...FOR, and REVIEW. This allows the recipients of error messages to take corrective action without having to bother the list owner.

Examples:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo DELIVERY-ERRORS-TO & george@somewhere

This sets the recipient of all error messages set in the DEFAULT preference CCoption command (See DEFAULT preference CCoption above) to george@somewhere. The list owner will continue to receive error messages unless the list owner removes him/herself from receiving such messages with the REMOVE-ERRORS-TO command.

configuration mylist foo REMOVE-ERRORS-TO & harriet@somewhere

This will remove the person harriet@somewhere from receiving error messages.

22. DIGEST frequency [when] [lines bytes]
23. DIGEST daily hh:mm [lines bytes]
24. DIGEST weekly [day-of-the-week] [lines bytes]
25. DIGEST monthly [lines bytes]
26. NO-DIGESTS

Turn on/off collection of digests; define when they will be distributed. Requires specification of how frequently the digest should be sent out. Digests can be sent out daily, weekly, or monthly. If weekly, the day of the week can be specified. Digests are always sent out at midnight if the time is not indicated. In contrast, if the default for each subscriber is set to sending out all mail as digests because it was set that way using the DEFAULT mail digest command, then the individual user will be able to change that designation using a SET mailmode command. If lines and/or bytes are specified, digests will then be distributed at the specified time or whenever the number of lines exceeds the specified limit, or whenever the size of the digest exceeds the specified limit. If an owner wants to change the lines or bytes spec only, the owner may use the dash ( - ) as a place holder (one dash is enough for all cases) for frequency.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo digest daily 00:01

will mail digests daily at one minute after midnight

configuration mylist foo digest weekly wednesday 06:00

will mail digests once a week on Wednesdays at 6 am

configuration mylist foo digest monthly 250 2000

will mail digests once a month but if the digest reaches 250 lines or 2000 bytes first it will be sent out. Additional material will be sent out when the month turns over as usual. Since a time is not specified the digest will go out at midnight.

configuration mylist foo digest - 100 1024

will not change the method of sending out digests or time but in the event the digest reaches 100 lines or 1024 bytes in size the digest will be mailed out immediately, not waiting for the designated time. The "-" is used as a place holder for frequency of mailing. To turn off the specs, owners may specify zero:

configuration mylist foo digest - 0 1024

This will send a digest out whenever it is supposed to go out, or every 1024 bytes (or more); no line-count restriction is set.

27. DISABLE command [command]
28. ENABLE command [command]

Enable or disable specific user commands. This applies to specific user commands such as REVIEW or STATISTICS but does not apply to user SET commands. Disable prevents users, but not owners, from issuing these commands.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo disable review

will prevent all users, whether subscribed or not, from getting any output from a REVIEW command to ListProc on the “MyList” list.

configuration mylist foo disable subscribe

will prevent anyone from subscribing to “MyList”. Anyone wanting to subscribe will have to send a message to the owner asking to be put on and the owner may add the person. However, this should not be routinely used as a means of keeping a list closed. The closed-subscriptions option is better used for this purpose.

29. SET-DISABLE mode [value] [mode [value]]
30. SET-ENABLE mode [value] [mode [value]]

mail ack|noack|postpone|digest

conceal yes|no

password

Enable or disable specific user SET commands. This applies to commands in which users set their mail mode such as SET MAIL ACK, conceal, or change their password. Owners can still SET ...FOR any commands which have been disabled.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo set-disable conceal

will prevent all users from changing their visibility on a REVIEW command. If all users are concealed, then they will remain so. If all users are visible, then they will remain visible.

configuration mylist foo set-disable password

will prevent all users from changing their list passwords.

configuration mylist foo set-enable password

will re-enable changing of passwords on a list in which changing passwords was previously disabled.

31. FORWARD-REJECTS
32. DONT-FORWARD-REJECTS

Enable or disable forwarding of reject/error messages to the list owners instead of to the original senders. If FORWARD-REJECTS is on, then listprocessor forwards listproc-generated error messages to the list owners, not the message sender.

Example:

For a list named "mylist" whose owner password is "foo"

configuration mylist foo forward-rejects

will cause all user-generated error messages to go to the list owner or person designated as recipient of error message.

configuration mylist foo dont-forward-rejects

will allow all user generated error messages to go to the user whose command or message caused the error. The owner or designated recipient of error messages will also receive a copy of the error message.

33. KEEP-RESENT-LINES
34. DONT-KEEP-RESENT-LINES

When forwarded mail is sent to a list, enables or disables a header line indicating that the message is forwarded mail.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo keep-resent-lines

When a user forwards mail to a list this will cause ListProc to add a line to the message header saying that the message was forwarded.

35. HIDDEN-LIST
36. VISIBLE-LIST

Determines whether a list is visible or hidden when listprocessor receives a command for a list of lists. HIDDEN-LIST turns on ARCHIVES-TO-SUBSCRIBERS, REVIEW-TO-SUBSCRIBERS, STATISTICS-TO-SUBSCRIBERS, SEND-TO-SUBSCRIBERS, all limiting access to information from the list to subscribers.

Example:

For a list named "mylist" whose owner password is "foo"

configuration mylist foo hidden-list

will prevent anyone from seeing the list named "MyList" in a LISTS command. Also prevents anyone from requesting archives, a review of the list, statistics, or from posting to the list if they are not subscribed.

37. MAX-MESSAGES-PER-DAY number

or

38. MESSAGE-LIMIT number
39. NO-MESSAGE-LIMIT

Determines the maximum number of messages a list will process per day. Messages above the maximum will be held until the next day and processed, or will be sent if the list is FREEed. It is a good idea to set a message limit for all lists. If the owner does not want a message limit, the limit can be set to a high number. This way, if a message loop occurs there will be a limit to how many messages will get sent out in a single day before the owner discovers and corrects the loop.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo message-limit 300

configuration mylist foo max-messages-per-day 300

will not allow more than 300 messages to go out from MyList in a single day. If more than 300 messages are posted to the list, all messages over 300 are stored until the following day before posting. The two commands, message-limit and max-messages-per-day are synonyms for each other.

41. MODERATED-EDIT address [address]
42. MODERATED-NO-EDIT address [address]
43. UNMODERATED
44. REMOVE-MODERATORS address [address]

Determine moderation of list. MODERATED-EDIT sends all messages to the moderator(s) for editing and approval. MODERATED-NO-EDIT sends all messages to the moderator(s) for approval and includes a tag identifier in the first line. Moderator sends back an approval command giving the tag identifier only. See APPROVE command. Moderators may be removed with the REMOVE-MODERATORS command. If a list is set up as MODERATED with a specified address as moderator and an additional MODERATED command is given, either MODERATED-EDIT, or MODERATED-NO-EDIT, with a new moderator address, the new moderator address is added to the pre-existing moderator address such that both addresses become moderators. In other words, the old moderator is not replaced. The only way to replace a moderator is to use the REMOVE-MODERATORS command to remove the moderator to be replaced. However, if a list is MODERATED-NO-EDIT and a MODERATED-EDIT command is given, then the list is changed, and vice versa. If a list is MODERATED but no address is specified, messages are sent to owners for approval. See APPROVE command.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo moderated-no-edit george@somewhere

will set the list so that all messages posted to the list by any subscribers will go to george@somewhere for approval. A paragraph is appended to each message telling the moderator to send an approve command if the moderator wants to allow the message to be posted.

configuration mylist foo moderated-edit george@somewhere

will set the list so that all messages posted to the list by any subscribers will go to george@somewhere but then that moderator will be able to edit the messages and send them back to ListProc for posting to the list.

configuration mylist foo moderated-no-edit

will set the list to moderated without editing of messages but since no moderator was specified, the list owner becomes the default moderator of the list.

45. OWNERS address [address]

New owners may be added with the OWNERS command. This command does not replace owners, it only adds new owners. To replace owners, it is necessary to use both the REMOVE-OWNERS command and the OWNERS command.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo owners george@somewhere

will add george@somewhere as an owner in addition to the current owner(s). It will not replace current owners; it only adds new owners.

46. REMOVE-OWNERS address [address] ...

List manager, or list owners, if list is OWNER-CONTROLLED, may remove owners.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo remove-owners george@somewhere

will remove george@somewhere from being an owner of the list "MyList".

47. PASSWORD string

Set or change the list management password.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo password gobbledygook

will change the list management password from "foo" to "gobbledygook".

48. PUBLISHED-LIST

Will add you list to the global list database. This allows users at other locations to search for you list based on the list COMMENT and list name and subscribe and unsubscribe without knowing the exact location of your list. (Global subscription)

49. UNPUBLISHED-LIST

Will make you list visible only if the local listproc is queried or searched.

50. SUBSCRIPTION-MANAGERS address [address] ...
51. REMOVE-SUBSCRIPTION-MANAGERS address [address] ...
52. REMOVE-ALL-SUBSCRIPTION-MANAGERS

Add or remove subscription managers. The SUBSCRIPTION-MANAGERS command does not remove or replace the existing subscription managers, it adds new managers. To remove managers the REMOVE-SUBSCRIPTION-MANAGERS command must be used.

Example:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

configuration mylist foo subscription-managers george@somewhere

will set george@somewhere as the subscription manager for the MyList list. All requests for subscriptions will go to that address for approval. Then george@somewhere will have to use the ADD command to subscribe the individuals requesting subscription. If the list is open to subscriptions, however, the subscription manager does not get requests because new subscribers may add themselves.

configuration mylist foo subscription-managers george@somewhere

will remove george@somewhere from being a subscription manager leaving the other subscription managers in place. If there are no other subscription managers then the list owner becomes subscription manager by default.

53. REPLY-TO-LIST
54. REPLY-TO-LIST-ALWAYS
55. REPLY-TO-SENDER
56. REPLY-TO-SENDER-ALWAYS
57. REPLY-TO-OMITTED

Determines whether replies automatically go to the list or to the sender of the individual message. If list is a digest replies always go to the list. When a list is set as REPLY-TO-LIST, REPLY-TO-SENDER, or REPLY-TO-OMITTED, if the sender includes a Reply-To: in the message header it takes precedence. However, if the list is set as REPLY-TO-[LIST|SENDER]-ALWAYS then the user's inclusion of a Reply-To: in the message header will be ignored.

Example:

For a list named "mylist" whose owner password is "foo"

configuration mylist foo reply-to-list

will cause all replies to all messages to go to the list except if the sender of the reply adds a REPLY-TO: line to the message header.

configuration mylist foo reply-to-sender-always

will cause all replies to all messages to go to the sender of the message being replied to even if the person replying tries to put a REPLY-TO: line in the message header.

configuration mylist foo reply-to-omitted

will cause all replies to go neither to the list or the person replying. Usually replies go to the list owner.

58. REVIEW-BY-ALL
59. REVIEW-TO-ALL
60. REVIEW-BY-OWNERS
61. REVIEW-TO-OWNERS
62. REVIEW-BY-SUBSCRIBERS
63. REVIEW-TO-SUBSCRIBERS

Determines who can submit a REVIEW command for a list. See below for additional details.

64. STATISTICS-BY-ALL
65. STATISTICS-TO-ALL
66. STATISTICS-BY-OWNERS
67. STATISTICS-TO-OWNERS
68. STATISTICS-BY-SUBSCRIBERS
69. STATISTICS-TO-SUBSCRIBERS

Determines who can issue a command for list statistics. See below for additional details.

70. SEND-BY-ALL
71. SEND-BY-OWNERS
72. SEND-BY-OWNERS-CONFIRM
73. SEND-BY-SUBSCRIBERS
74. SEND-BY-SUBSCRIBERS-CONFIRM

Determines who can post to a list.

ALL: Anyone, whether subscribed to a list or not. OWNERS: Limited to list owners. SUBSCRIBERS: Both subscribers and owners. Commands using the word TO or BY are equivalent. The CONFIRM variants require the sender of the message to include

confirm: password

as one of the lines in the message.

Examples:

For a list named "mylist" whose owner password is "foo"

configuration mylist foo review-by-all

will allow anyone, whether subscribed to MyList or not, to send a REVIEW command to ListProc and receive the output.

configuration mylist foo review-to-all

will allow anyone, whether subscribed to MyList or not, to send a REVIEW command to ListProc to REVIEW MyList and receive the output. In all three commands allowing or disallowing a REVIEW command, STATISTICS command, or ability to SEND messages to the list, the TO and BY are synonyms and can be substituted for each other.

configuration mylist foo review-to-owners

will allow only the owners of MyList to send a REVIEW command to ListProc to REVIEW MyList. Subscribers and non-subscribers alike will get back an error message saying this command is not available.

configuration mylist foo review-to-subscribers

will allow only subscribers to MyList to send a REVIEW command to ListProc to REVIEW MyList. In all cases owners are always allowed to send a REVIEW command.

configuration mylist foo statistics-to-all

will allow anyone, whether subscribed to MyList or not, to send a STATISTICS command to ListProc to get use statistics for MyList.

configuration mylist foo send-by-all

will allow anyone, whether subscribed to MyList or not, to send or post messages to the list. However, non-subscribers will not receive any messages from the list.

configuration mylist foo send-by-owners

will allow only the owners of MyList to send or post messages to the list. This creates a one-way read-only list.

Review Examples for the CONFIGURATION Command:

All of the following examples assume a list called bajor-l located at somewhere.net. The owner’s password is r45678.

CON bajor-l r45678 owners jim@machine.org sally@machine.org

For the list, bajor-l, adds two people as co-owners, jim@machine.org and sally@machine.org, giving their e-mail addresses. Notice that the configuration command is abbreviated as CON.

con bajor-l r45678 send-by-sub reply-to list review-by-subscr & stat-by-owners arc shazam digests arc-to-all

In this example, for the list bajor-l, send-by-sub allows only subscribers to post to the list, review-by-subscr restricts issuing a review command concerning the list to subscribers. reply-to list directs all replies to messages sent from the list back to the list. stat-by-owners restricts sending a request for list statistics to owners only. arc shazam digests causes all messages sent out from the list to be archived as digests which can be requested by anyone (arc-to-all), whether subscribed to the list or not by giving the archive password shazam. Notice that while the previous example used CON in upper case, this example uses con in lower case. The commands are generally case insensitive. Notice also that because the command spans more than one line it has an ampersand (&) at the end of the first line to signify to the listprocessor that the command is continued on the next line.

Configuration bajor-l r45678 message-limit 1205 visible-list &

no-auto-delete-subscribers keep-resent-lines dont-forward-rejects

In this example, for the list bajor-l, message-limit 1205 sets a limit on the number of messages the listprocessor sends out per day to 1205 messages; once 1205 messages have been sent out, any additional messages will be held until the next day. The owner here has set an extremely high limit which is unlikely to be met unless the list is echoing bounces back to the list. In this case the echo of bounces will continue until the 1205 message limit is reached or the owner or list manager stops the resending of these messages. On the other hand subscribers whose mail bounces will not be deleted from the list automatically (no-auto-delete-subscribers). keep-resent-lines tells the listprocessor to keep the lines saying "Forwarded " in all messages which are forwarded by subscribers to the list. dont-forward-rejects causes the listprocessor to send rejected messages back to the sender of the messages instead of forwarding them to list owners or moderators.

configuration bajor-l r45678

As mentioned previously, the configuration command without any options results in a list of the configuration options as they currently are set for the list. Below is a sample response:

Configuration of ListProcessor list bajor-l@somewhere.net

VISIBLE-LIST

OWNER-SUBSCRIPTIONS

SUBSCRIPTION-MANAGERS [owners]

SEND-BY-SUBSCRIBERS

STATISTICS-TO-SUBSCRIBERS

REVIEW-BY-SUBSCRIBERS

ARCHIVES-TO-SUBSCRIBERS

NO-ARCHIVE

UNMODERATED

DELIVERY-ERRORS-TO [kira@machine.org]

DIGEST daily 00:01 0 0

NO-MESSAGE-LIMIT

COMMENT Ongoing discussion of politics on planet Bajor

AUTO-DELETE-SUBSCRIBERS

DONT-FORWARD-REJECTS

REPLY-TO-LIST

KEEP-RESENT-LINES

OWNERS kira@machine.org jim@machine.org sally@machine.org

PASSWORD r45678

OWNER-CONTROLLED

Compare the response above with the response a user gets when sending a review command to the listprocessor. The review command returns almost the same information but in a format that is simple to understand for the user. The configuration command with no options returns the information in a format that makes it easier for the list owner to decide on options to change.

review bajor-l short returns the following response:

***

*** list bajor-l@somewhere.net: Ongoing discussion of politics on planet Bajor

***

*** Date created: Sun Sep 11 03:39:41 1994

--- The current list settings are as follows:

PRIVATE: subscriptions controlled by jim@machine.org sally@machine.org .

SEND: open to subscribers and owners only.

VISIBLE: the list shows up in listings.

NO-ARCHIVE: no logs are kept.

STATS: open to subscribers and owners only.

REVIEW: open to subscribers and owners only.

ARCHIVES: available to subscribers and owners only.

UNMODERATED: postings not controlled.

DIGEST: digests distributed daily at 00:01

MESSAGE-LIMIT: unlimited daily postings.

FORWARD-REJECTS: no; all listproc-generated errors sent to sender.

REPLY-TO-LIST

AUTO-DELETE-SUBSCRIBERS: yes.

KEEP-RESENT-LINES: yes; Resent- header lines preserved.

DELIVERY-ERRORS: non-delivery reports are sent to the owners.

OWNERS: kira@machine.org jim@machine.org sally@machine.org

 

 

bajor-l is a private, closed list used by the Bajoran council to discuss local politics. Minutes of the meetings of the council are posted to the archives.

 

In addition to returning the same information as the configuration command, the review command returns the info file and, if the review command is not a "review listname short" command, then it also returns the list of non-concealed subscribers.

End of options for CONFIGURATION command.

2. Commands Affecting List Subscriptions
1. [quiet] ADD list password address user-name

or, for adding multiple user-names:

[quiet] ADD list password {address user-name} &

{ address user-name }{ address user-name }

Add specified user(s) to the list. If more than one user is added, enclose each one in brackets {}. Multiple names may be placed on one line or place one name per line in brackets. Commands spanning more than one line require an ampersand (&) at the end of each line to indicate that the command is continued on the next line. If the optional "quiet" switch is added before the command line, the user(s) will not be notified. When adding a user to a list only the following characters are permitted in a user’s address or user-name:

All the alphabetic letters from a - Z including both upper and lower case, all the numbers from 0 - 9, and the following characters [ \ t + = : ; ' . , @ # % ! _ - ] while user names may NOT contain the following characters: ` " < > [ ] { } | $ ~ * ? ! \

(Please note that in this discussion the symbol \t is a combined symbol which stands for the tab character and not the separate characters slash-t.)

Although a user-name can be as many words as the user wants, the portion that shows up in a review command is limited to five words including the e-mail address.

Examples:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

add mylist foo ht56@springfield.org Albert Parker

will subscribe Albert Parker to MyList with the address ht56@springfield.org and Albert will receive a welcome message from ListProc.

quiet add mylist foo trans@springfield.org MaryLou Parker

will subscribe MaryLou Parker to MyList with the address trans@springfield.org but MaryLou will NOT receive a welcome message or any indication of having been added to the list from ListProc because in this case the quiet option was used.

add mylist foo {ht56@springfield.org Albert Parker} &

{trans@springfield.org MaryLou Parker} &

{fort@machine.org The National Janitorial Crew}

will subscribe Albert Parker, MaryLou Parker, and The National Janitorial Crew to MyList with their respective addresses. All will receive a welcome message from ListProc. Notice that the subscriber from fort@machine.org used a four-word name for the subscription. ListProc will accept up to five separate words in a subscription, one word is used for the address of the subscriber; the other four words can be used for the subscriber’s name. Note that the ampersand (&) is used here to indicate that the ADD command is continued on the next line.

2. ALIas list password new-address address-as-subscribed

Alias an existing subscriber to a new address. Used in cases where a subscriber needs to be able to send mail from another machine or the subscriber's email address can appear in multiple formats. Mail will be accepted from both the address-as-subscribed and from the new-address. The new-address pattern may be an extended standard UNIX regular expression. For more information on regular expressions, see the section on that subject at the end of this file.

Examples:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo” the user ht56@nebbuch.org has informed the list owner that occasionally she would like to be able to send commands to ListProc from another machine but doesn’t want to have to subscribe from that machine also. The list owner complied by setting up an alias for the second account.

alias mylist foo ret@kabb.net ht56@nebbuch.org

so that all mail from the second address, ret@kabb.net, is seen by ListProc as being from ht56@nebbuch.org. Using regular expressions, the list owner can map a whole range of e-mail addresses to aliases. For example, a second user has complained that she has an account on a system called whatsoever.net which has 3 machines networked together. Mail can be addressed to her at susie@whatsoever.net. However, when she logs into her account on whatsoever.net she can randomly log into any one of the three machines and her return address can be any one of the 3 machine addresses. The 3 machines are named red, blue, and green. So when she sends mail her message header can say that the mail is from susie@red.whatsoever.net or susie@blue.whatsoever.net or susie@green.whatsoever.net. This results in ListProc having her subscribed to MyList from only one of the three machines and when she is logged into either of the other two machines her commands to ListProc are rejected. This situation is very bothersome for her and she asks the list owner if he can do anything to help her. The list owner responds by sending to ListProc the command

alias mylist foo (.+)@.*\.whatsoever.net \1@whatsoever.net

The addresses being given to the ALIAS command are regular expressions. The subject of regular expressions is covered in another section later in this manual. The end result of the above command is that whenever any mail comes in from any user whose address ends in "whatsoever.net" the person’s username is attached to the string "@whatsoever.net" and the first portion, either red, blue, or green, is stripped off.

3. [quiet] DELETE list password address [address]

Delete the specified user(s) from the list. Multiple names may be placed on one line. If the command spans more than one line an ampersand (&) must be placed at the end of each line to indicate that the command is continued on the next line. If the optional "quiet" switch is added before the command line, the user(s) will not be notified.

Examples:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

delete mylist foo ht56@springfield.org

will remove ht56@springfield.org from MyList and this user will receive a notification that he has been dropped from the list.

quiet delete mylist foo trans@springfield.org

will delete trans@springfield from MyList, but this user will not receive any notification of being dropped because the quiet option was used on the command.

delete mylist foo ht56@springfield.org &

trans@springfield.org fort@machine.org

will remove, or unsubscribe, all three users from the list. All will receive a notification message from ListProc that they have been removed from the list. Note that the ampersand (&) is used here to indicate that the DELETE command is continued on the next line.

4. IGNore list password address

Add a user to a file of troublesome users whose mail to a list should be discarded. The address pattern may be an extended standard UNIX regular expression. For more information on regular expressions, see the section on this topic at the end of this file.

Examples:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo” a user has been sending abusive messages to the list and the owner wants ListProc to ignore anything coming from this user. The owner sends ListProc a command saying:

ignore mylist foo ht56@springfield.org

which directs ListProc to totally ignore anything sent to it from ht56@springfield.org. The list owner is notified that this person is still sending messages to the list but none of the messages sent gets posted to the list. Using regular expressions, the list owner can have ListProc ignore a whole range of e-mail addresses. For example, suppose the list MyList is being run for the benefit of only people from the University of Southern Madagascar. The domain for that organization is usmaf.edu. By sending the command:

ignore mylist foo ~<.*\.usmaf.edu>

the list owner instructs ListProc to ignore any address that doesn’t end in "usmaf.edu". The subject of regular expressions is covered in a section later in this manual.

5. LOCk list password

Suspend execution of list-specific commands and queue them up for later processing. Owners may still issue such commands, unless the list is locked by the listprocessor manager. The list will still process messages.

6. UNLock list password

Resume execution of list-specific commands, including those queued up while the list was locked. All owners may unlock a list, unless it's locked by the listprocessor manager.

Examples:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

lock mylist foo

will prevent all user commands from being sent concerning the list called MyList. Messages posted to the list will still go out. Commands sent to ListProc concerning MyList will be held until the list is unlocked.

unlock mylist foo

will unlock the list and cause any commands being held from users to be executed. Anytime a list owner sends an EDIT command without using the -nolock option, the list will be locked until the list owner sends an UNLOCK command or PUTs the file that was EDITed.

7. [quiet] SET list [option arg[s]] for address [address]

Allows list owner to SET subscriber mail options for the subscriber(s). If quiet, the user(s) will not be notified. The SET command also allows the list owner to SET the amount of list control messages that are sent to the person who is designated to receive error messages.

Valid options and args are:

[quiet] SET list mail ack|noack|postpone|digest

- ack | noack determines whether sender of message gets a copy of his/her posted messages back from the list. When ack is set, the user gets a copy of all mail sent to the list. When noack is set the sender does not get a copy of his/her own mail sent to the list.

- postpone causes user’s mail to be held until the user releases it. This is useful if a user goes on vacation for a period of time. When the user releases the mail by sending another SET command all held mail is sent.

- digest causes a user’s mail to be sent collected into a digest. Certain places like CompuServe charge for mail on a per-message basis. In this case a user may want to have all mail from a list sent in a digest instead of separate messages.

[quiet] SET list password current-password new-password

change list password for user.

[quiet] SET list address password new-address

change the address by which the list knows a user. Using the SET address command you can change the address to which your user receives mail from the list.

[quiet] SET list conceal yes|no

hide user name in commands for lists of subscribers.

List owners can set for themselves any of the following:

[quiet] SET list preference CCoption

- determines which commands sent by users are copied to owners. When a user sends any command to ListProc concerning your list a copy of the output from ListProc will come to either the list owner or the designated recipient of error messages or both. CCoption can be one of:

CCSUBSCRIBE - The list owner gets a copy of all subscription requests.

CCUNSUBSCRIBE - The list owner gets a copy of all unsubscribe requests.

CCRECIPIENTS - The list owner gets a copy of all requests for list recipients.

CCINFORMATION - The list owner gets a copy of all requests for information.

CCSTATISTICS - The list owner gets copied on all statistics requests.

CCPRIVATE -

CCRUN - The ListProc manager gets copied on all run requests.

CCIGNORE - The list owner gets all messages sent by people on the ignore file.

CCERRORS - The list owner will receive a copy of all error messages.

CCREVIEW - The list owner will be copied on all review requests.

CCALL -The list owner and/or ListProc manager gets copied on all of the above. Be aware that this option will generate a lot of mail.

SET list preference CCoption is used to make changes from the defaults which are set by the owner using the ‘configuration listname password default preference’ command as detailed above.

In addition, options can be set for subscribers by appending the for userid@host.domain to the set command as follows:

[quiet] SET list address password new-address for user@host.domain

[quiet] SET list mail ack|noack|postpone|digest for user@host.domain

In this way, an owner can submit requests for users effecting only that user account without the need to edit the subscribers file.

 

 

Examples:

For a list named "mylist" whose owner password is "foo"

SET mylist foo mail digest for mark@where.ever.com

will tell ListProc to send all mail from the list called MyList to user mark@where.ever.com as a digest instead of single messages. The user can, of course, send a SET mail digest command himself but if either the set command is disabled by the owner or the user is so unsure of himself that he asks the list owner to do it for him this allows the list owner to do it.

SET mylist mark@last.address foo mark@where.ever.com

will tell ListProc to change the address for mark@last.address in the list called MyList to mark@where.ever.com. This would be in the event that user mark@last.address suddenly lost his account and was unable to unsubscribe from the list. If mark@last.address remembered his list subscriber password, he might have been able to change his address on the list himself using the SET list-name password old-address new-address command which is detailed in the ListProc User Manual.

SET mylist preference ccsubscribe ccunsubscribe ccerrors

will tell ListProc to send all requests to subscribe or unsubscribe and all error messages to the list owner or other designated recipient of error messages. (See the section describing the Configuration delivery-errors-to command above.)

SYStem list password user-address #user-command

Allows the list owner to issue any command on a user's behalf. This command is a vestigal command from previous versions of ListProc and it has been replaced by other commands. Its presence in this version of ListProc is only for the convenience of list owners who are accustomed to previous versions of ListProc.

 

3. Commands Affecting Posting of Messages to a List
1. APProve list password tag [tag][tag][tag].... [tag]
2. DIScard list password tag [tag][tag][tag].... [tag]

If the list is set up as MODERATED-NO-EDIT, discards or approves the message identified by the tag number for posting to the specified moderated list. Both APPROVE and DISCARD will accept multiple tags on one line or on several lines, each ending in an ampersand (&) except for the last line.

Examples:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

APPROVE mylist foo 124 749 325

DISCARD mylist foo 097

on a list which is moderated-no-edit will tell ListProc to send messages with tag numbers 124, 749, and 325 out to the list while the second line tells ListProc to discard message number 097.

3. HOLd list password

Suspend distribution of messages but allow users and owners to send commands to the list. This command is complementary to the LOCK command which stops all commands to the list but allows messages to continue to be delivered.

4. FREe list password

Resume delivery of a held list, or reset the message-limit to zero. If the listprocessor manager held the list, only he/she can free it.

Examples:

For a list named “mylist” whose owner password is “foo”

HOLD mylist foo

will tell ListProc to suspend distribution of mail to MyList. However, commands concerning the list will still be accepted.

10. Archive Command

Listproc has the ability to define archive-owners in a way similar to list-owners. Archives can be defined, which can be independent of mailing list, such that an owner can add, delete or update files in that archive. Like mailing lists, the archive owners must make all requests from the e-mail address that he/she is registered as the owner and use the archive password. Only the site maintainer can create an archive, define owner(s) and grant them privileges.

An archive owner add files to the archive, update existing files, define the archives for Automatic File Distribution (see section V below). The listmanager may define multiple owners to the same archive, each with different permissions, (i.e. one owner may only have update permissions while another can add and delete files).

Owner Command:

1. archive <name> <password> <review>

archive <name> <password> <update|add> <filename> [description]

archive <name> <password> <delete> <filename> [filename ...]

The above shows the three actions that the archive command performs and there related options. The review option will return a the archive owners options (i.e. their privileges registered email address and password. The update and add options will add a new file to the archive or overwrite and existing file. The description must be enclosed in quotes if it is more than one word. The description will appear after the file name in response to a user index archive-name request.

Examples:

For an archive named “myarchive” whose owner password is “foo”

ARCHIVE myarchive foo review

will provide the owner with his/her current archive settings as follows:

DIRECTORY /path/to/myarchive

PASSWORD foo

PUBLIC

UNCOMPRESSED

UNSPLIT

NO-AFD-FUI

OWNER user@foo.bar

These are the archives settings that the site manager established for this archive. The archive owner can not change any of these and must contact the site maintainer for any changes. Reviewing these options, we find that that:

DIRECTORY The path to the archive on the host on which it resides. No

user will ever have to know this. The actual path is not

needed in any user requests.

PUBLIC The archive shows up in response to an INDEX command

PRIVATE The archive does not show up in response to an INDEX

command. Only archive subscribers, the archive owner and

the manager will see the archive.

COMPRESSED The archive is stored in UNIX Compress format.

Compression is transparent to end users as the file is

uncompressed before being sent to users.

UNCOMPRESSED The files in the archive are stored uncompressed. Listproc

can compress files to better use disk space. This would be

transparent to end users.

UNSPLIT The files are not split regardless of file size. Listproc can

split up large files into predetermined pieces. The splitting is done at the point the file is being mailed out. In this way,

a large file can be split in a fashion to allow certain mail

gateways with per message size restrictions to process the

mail.

SPLIT The files are split into predetermined chunks .. The option

would report the CHUNK size in bytes. (the maximum size

of each portion it is split into).

NO-AFD-FUI This archive is unavailable for AFD or FUI (See section V)

AFD-FUI The archive is available for AFD or FUI.

Each of these parameters can be changed by the site maintainer only. When archives are being set up for access in this fashion, you must communicate your needs to the site maintainer.

To add a file called “test” to the archive myarchive

ARCHIVE myarchive foo add test “My Test File”

This is a test file

The file will contain these two lines.

Everything after the archive command to the end of the mail message will be the body of the file. The file will also have the comment “My Test File” added to it.

To update the file called “test” to the archive myarchive

ARCHIVE myarchive foo update test “My New Test File”

This is the new test file

It will contain these two lines

As in the example above, everything after the archive command becomes the body of the file. The file called test is replaced with the new one and the comment is changed to reflect the new comment provided.

To delete file “test” from the archive “myarchive”

ARCHIVE myarchive foo delete test

It is important to remember that the archive owner must have been granted the appropriate access by the site maintainer (UPDATE, ADD and DELETE). If the owner does not have sufficient access, Listproc will return an error informing the owner that he/she has insufficient privileges for the requested operation.

 

12. File Archives as Lists

AFD, Automatic File Distribution, is a mechanism for the automatic distribution of file archives or individual files via listproc. Users subscribe to an archive just as they would a message-based list. When the archive manager updates the files in the archive, the files are automatically sent out to the archive subscribers, or, if subscribers prefer, they may simply receive a notification of a file update, leaving it up to the subscriber to GET the file. The same AFD and FUI commands can be sent by users and by archive managers but the commands have different meanings depending on who gives the command.

User Commands:

1. afd <action> {<archive> [/password] [files]} &
   [{<archive> [/password] [files]}]
3. fui <action> {<archive> [/password] [files]} &
   [{<archive> [/password] [files]}]

Where action can be one of add, delete, or query. This allows a user to subscribe to, drop from, or query an archive . Please see the CREN ListProc User Manual for more information on the user commands.

Owner Commands:

[quiet] afd <action> {<archive> [/password] [files]} &

user-address user-address user-address user-address

This will allow you to subscribe a user to an archive such that whenever the archive is updated the user will receive the new files automatically. You may optionally specify filenames in the archive so that the user will receive only those files when they are updated. The name of the archive and optional file names must be in brackets {}. If the command is preceded by the word “quiet” then the user will not be notified of being added to or subtracted from the archive list.

 

[quiet] fui <action> {<archive> [/password] [files]} &

user-address user-address user-address user-address

This will allow you to subscribe a user to an archive such that whenever the archive is updated the user will automatically receive notification of the new files but will not receive the new files themselves as in the afd command. You may optionally specify filenames in the archive so that the user will receive notification of only those files when they are updated. The name of the archive and optional file names must be in brackets {}. If the command is preceded by the word "quiet" then the user will not be notified of being added to or subtracted from the archive list.

Options for action are: add, delete, query, deliver, deliver_files, or deliver-debug. Both commands take identical arguments and the examples below can be applied to both AFD and FUI.

ADD will add a user to an archive.

DELETE will delete a user from an archive.

QUERY will tell a user to which archives he/she is subscribed.

REVIEW will send a list of subscribers to an archive.

DELIVER will force delivery of a file whether it has been updated or not. If the deliver command is given and "archive" is missing, it will scan all archives for afd/fui files. Syntax of the DELIVER command is:

afd deliver <password> [archive]

fui deliver <password> [archive]

DELIVER-DEBUG will produce a report of activity without touching system files or sending mail. It will list all newly updated files and who will be notified. This command does not list old files; it only reports on what will happen the next time a delivery is scheduled. Syntax of the DELIVER_DEBUG command is:

afd deliver-debug <password> [archive]

fui deliver-debug <password> [archive]

DELIVER_FILES frequency [when] allows an archive owner to determine when files will be delivered after new updates are posted. Valid options are:

deliver_files hourly <min> <password> [archive]

deliver_files daily <hh:mm> <password> [archive]

deliver_files weekly <day> <password> [archive]

deliver_files monthly <password> [archive]

Examples:

For file archives called "master" having a password of "shazam" and an archive called "doc" having no password, both being owned by the same person:

quiet fui add {master /shazam } peter@system.com & mary@machine.org

This will add these two users to the "master" archive. Since this is an fui command it means the two users will be notified when the Master archive’s or any subarchive's files are updated (if, of course, that subarchive if marked for afd/fui functions).

If the owner sends the command:

afd add { master /shazam file1 file2 } { doc } peter@system.com

This will add the user to an archive named "master", but not to the entire archive; the user is only added to files "file1" and "file2" notify list and will receive these files when either of these two files are updated, and be added to archive "doc" list (anything updated in "doc" will be sent to sender also).

afd deliver shazam master

fui deliver shazam master

This will force delivery of all files in the "master" archive and notifications of the files whether they are new or not.

afd deliver-debug shazam master

fui deliver-debug shazam master

This will cause a report to be delivered to the archive owner in the following form:

FST: File Subscribers Table: list of files and subscribers.

SFT: Subscribers Files Table: list of subscribers and files subscribed to.

FMT: File Modification times Table: list of files and modification times.

14. Interactive ListProcessor (ilp)

Commands to ListProcessor may be issued interactively, i.e., directly to ListProc without using e-mail, if both the host running ListProc and the system you use are networked directly on the Internet. ILP clients are available to run under UNIX, X-windows, Macintosh, and MS-Windows. An ilp session offers a command line interface in UNIX and graphical interface in the other clients. Copies of ilp should be available on the server hosting the list that you interact with. If not you may contact CREN for the latest version.

If you are using UNIX you will need to compile the ilp client before you use it. Then you connect to your desired server with the command “ilp host@domain” where “host@ domain” is replaced by the Internet domain name for the server to which you are connecting. It may be necessary to give an optional port address; check with your ListProc system manager if this is necessary. Once you connect you will be prompted for a username and password. Log in with the e-mail address that ListProc knows for you in your list as a login name and use your list password as a password. If you are not subscribed to any lists on the system you may login as “test” giving a password of “new-user”. Once a connection has been established, you will get the ilp command prompt “REQUEST>“ to which all commands are entered. In the examples below the command prompt is in regular type as above and the commands that you type are in bold type. If ListProc cannot match your e-mail address and password with one in a known list then ListProc will give you “casual user” privileges. Casual users may only issue commands for help, information, recipients, and statistics for public lists and may issue index, get, view, and search requests in the archives. If you are a subscriber to a list then you may issue all these plus the set, run, subscribe, unsubscribe, and which commands. List owners may additionally issue all the owner commands for their lists. To review your command privileges type a question mark “?” or “privileges” at the prompt. ListProc accepts all ilp commands exactly as it does via e-mail. Long requests may be continued on multiple lines with an ampersand “&” at the end of each line. With the UNIX version of ilp the output of every request may be redirected to a file by using a standard UNIX redirection “>“ or “>>“ followed by a file name. For example, to get an index of an archive typing “REQUEST> index > listproc.index” will obtain an index of the archives and save it in a file called listproc.index. Like ftp, ilp allows you to specify a file type for all files transferred using the keywords “binary” and “ascii”. Input may also be redirected from a file using the UNIX redirection “<“ followed by a filename. Therefore you can create a file called BATCH.REQUESTS containing the lines

index>index.text

get ListProc info >>index.text

quit

and run it with the command:

“REQUEST> <BATCH>REQUESTS”.

You can also use UNIX porting of output with the “|” such that the command:

“REQUESTS> review listname | more”

will pipe the output of the “review “ command to the UNIX “more” command. As a further example, you can look for a specific subscriber in a list by issuing the command:

“REQUESTS> review listname | grep -i name” where “name” is replaced by the person’s name.

To end an ilp session just enter quit or exit at the prompt.

 

16. Regular Expressions

Many ListProc command lines take regular expressions as arguments. A regular expression is a group of symbols which describe a unique string of characters. An example of a simple regular expression is the word “donkey”. In a group of words, the regular expression “donkey” matches only other instances of the word “donkey” and nothing else. So if we had a text file and did a search for “donkey” every time that word appeared in the text it would show up in our search. This definition can be expanded if we define the period “.” as a wild card replacement for a single character. Then the regular expression “.onkey” would include “honkey” or “tonkey” or “bonkey” as well as “donkey”. We can continue to expand on the definition by adding the asterisk to the period “ .* ” as a substitute for any number of characters. Then the regular expression “don.* ” will not only include “donkey” but will include all strings of characters beginning with “don” including “don” itself. A search of a text file for “don.* ” will turn up dongle, donkey, donner, dondoodit, dondiddle, etc. Regular expression matching, therefore, puts together a whole set of rules that allow you to test whether a string fits into a specific syntactic shape. You can also search a string for a substring that fits a pattern, and just as importantly, you can replace one string with another. The command line of a ListProc command is more like a regular expression as used in a database search.

Regular expressions have a syntax in which a few characters are special constructs and the rest are "ordinary". An ordinary character is a simple regular expression which matches that character and nothing else. The special characters are `$', `^', `.', `*', `+', `?', `[', `]' and `\'. Any other character appearing in a regular expression is ordinary, unless a `\' precedes it.

For example, `f' is not a special character, so it is ordinary, and therefore `f' is a regular expression that matches the string `f' and no other string. (It does not match the string `ff'.) Likewise, `o' is a regular expression that matches only `o'.

Any two regular expressions A and B can be concatenated. The result is a regular expression which matches a string if A matches some amount of the beginning of that string and B matches the rest of the string.

As a simple example, we can concatenate the regular expressions `f' and `o' to get the regular expression `fo', which matches only the string `fo'. Still trivial.

The following are the characters and character sequences which have special meaning within regular expressions. Any character not mentioned here is not special; it stands for exactly itself for the purposes of searching and matching.

Your suggestions for improving this document are eagerly solicited by CREN and should be sent to suggestions@listproc.net.