Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 11:50:44AM -0200, Silas wrote: > On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 07:09:56AM +0530, Mayuresh wrote: > > Since your friend runs multiple lists, may be he has been able to put such > > restriction. Please do share if you can. > > I talked to him. He let it be clear that it is a [ugly?] workaround. > Actually, he wanted to use a mailing list manager, although he agreed that > it might not free the server from the load that happens when someone (like > the university administration) sends an email to 1+ students. Thanks, and please convey my thanks to your friend for sharing this! I was tinkering with this idea and came up with my version of ugliness. While I have used postfix to set up simple mail server, I do not have much experience of setting up the kind of things I illustrate below. The documentation is really intimidating and semantics not easy to grasp. This is adopted from /usr/share/examples/postfix/RESTRICTION_CLASS_README main.cf: # `permit' is really my trial and error outcome, most examples show # "reject" there, but that leads to rejection of mails sent to non-list # ids smtpd_recipient_restrictions = ... other things... check_recipient_access hash:/etc/postfix/protected_destinations permit insiders_only = check_sender_access hash:/etc/postfix/insiders smtpd_restriction_classes = insiders_only protected_destinations: insiders_only insiders (generatable from the alias list): OK OK ... This is kind of working for me, except that when a non-member's email gets rejected, e.g. from gmail, gmail shows "the remote server is misconfigured". The status code is 554 5.7.1, which as per [1] looks ok for the scenario. Firstly why should gmail call it misconfigured, but the bigger worry is it might blacklist the server if this happens too many times! Looking for help on this. Mayuresh [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3463
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 07:09:56AM +0530, Mayuresh wrote: Since your friend runs multiple lists, may be he has been able to put such restriction. Please do share if you can. I talked to him. He let it be clear that it is a [ugly?] workaround. Actually, he wanted to use a mailing list manager, although he agreed that it might not free the server from the load that happens when someone (like the university administration) sends an email to 1+ students. In main.cf, he adds his own thing to smtpd_recipient_restrictions: smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, reject_non_fqdn_recipient, reject_unauth_pipelining, reject_unauth_destination, ... other things ... $myrestrictions In the same file, there is: myrestrictions=check_policy_service unix:/var/run/myrestrictions/myrestrictions.sock (Apparently, he could have configured "myrestrictions" in master.cf, but he did that in main.cf) Now, in master.cf, for the submission service, he adds this: -o smtpd_recipient_restrictions=$myrestrictions,permit_sasl_authenticated,reject All right, what opens the myrestrictions.sock socket? A program he wrote (he wrote this in his favorite script language) that does the heavy work. This script is started and daemonize at the server startup (there is a /etc/init.d [this is GNU/Linux] that run it). This script does a lot of more things in spaghetti style. It seemed that this Postfix server grew from a small one to a very big disorderly one with thousands of users. I think, in general, it is something like that.
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 03:38:35PM -0200, Silas wrote: > There are some caveats, like not managing bouncing (there are cases when the > student is not registered anymore and his e-mail account is cancelled, but > it is still on the list -- it is just an alias --, they doesn't seem to have > a fully automated solution!), but I can't remember of other big problems > they had with this approach. The is indeed an interesting solution. BTW postfix does have a way to redirect bounces from an alias to a specific id specified as `owner-aliasname' (man 5 postconf). > Mailing list managers insert headers and contents to make e-mails match with > (kind of) recent e-mail rules for mailing lists. This is specially > important if you are going to deliver to other SMTP servers. I am testing things on a really small list right now to discover these things. As yet the mails have not bounced. But may be I can study headers of mailing lists and do the same in mine. That is very easy with header_checks. > But since it is an internal solution, you see any other problems with the > approach of just using Postfix aliases? I am yet to solve one issue : how to restrict sending mails to a list to the members of the list only. postfix documentation [1] does give this scenario, but I find the documentation to be cryptic and things aren't yet working. Since your friend runs multiple lists, may be he has been able to put such restriction. Please do share if you can. Mayuresh [1] /usr/share/examples/postfix/RESTRICTION_CLASS_README
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 11:53:18AM +0530, Mayuresh wrote: For a nearly static mailing list using postfix aliases is looking quite economical, presumably it would have the smallest footprint as MTA itself is doing the core job. This is interesting. A friend of mine works for a university and he told me they did exactly this. They have a lot of lists . For professors (500+), for other workers (600+), for students (15000+). They've added lists information in their local LDAP server so Postfix queries it and handles it just like local aliases. They did this not because they don't like a mailing system but because, at the beginning, it seemed easier than integrating Mailman or another manager to their solution. There are some caveats, like not managing bouncing (there are cases when the student is not registered anymore and his e-mail account is cancelled, but it is still on the list -- it is just an alias --, they doesn't seem to have a fully automated solution!), but I can't remember of other big problems they had with this approach. Mailing list managers insert headers and contents to make e-mails match with (kind of) recent e-mail rules for mailing lists. This is specially important if you are going to deliver to other SMTP servers. But since it is an internal solution, you see any other problems with the approach of just using Postfix aliases?
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 09:34:16PM -0600, ed...@pettijohn-web.com wrote: > man aliases > > list-name:include:/path/to/file/with/aliases > > look into allow_mail_to_commands and allow_mail_to_files for postfix > so that you can also pipe it to a script that saves it in some db. For a nearly static mailing list using postfix aliases is looking quite economical, presumably it would have the smallest footprint as MTA itself is doing the core job. For my second requirement of web archive I was looking for a good efficient (preferably C based) archiver preferably a separate component rather than a part of some mlm. These seem surprisingly few in number. I came across blists[1]. Integratable via procmail (or equivalent) as well as can be run as a cron job. It uses cgi to generate pages on the fly. It might make it conservative on space. But I think cgi would add to security hassles. I'd have preferred static htmls instead. Sample archives are here[2]. I am not particularly liking lack of threaded view (though thread links are present once you click on an item). But anyway, not finding too many alternatives that are efficient. Would appreciate comments and suggestions on postfix-blists combination for my requirements (i.e. mailing list with archives for a closed group of around 300, with web browsable archives and small resource footprint). I am considering adding blists it to pkgsrc-wip, after knowing the comments from the list. Mayuresh [1] https://github.com/aabc/blists [2] https://lists.openwall.net/linux-kernel/
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Jan 10, 2019 10:16 PM, Brett Lymn wrote: > > On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 07:07:02PM -0600, ed...@pettijohn-web.com wrote: > > > > Take a look at fdm. It can be used to fetch from imap/pop and deliver > > locally or take messages from stdin and deliver them. The config allows > > for piping through and executing external commands. Its syntax is > > similar to pf. > > > > Sorry, not for me, as you say, fdm wants to talk to pop/imap. The > situation where I use procmail I am using it in my .forward so the > filtering happens when the mail is delivered. You should check out the MANUAL for fdm on GitHub. There is a section for using it from a .forward file. > > I wonder how hard it would be to fix the issues found by the fuzzers. > To my mind, just because the code base is old doesn't mean it needs to be > thrown out. Escpecially when nothing else covers the same > functionality. > > -- > Brett Lymn > "We are were wolves", > "You mean werewolves?", > "No we were wolves, now we are something else entirely", > "Oh" I'm a big fdm advocate. It can do a lot. It all comes down to personal preference though. Edgar
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 07:07:02PM -0600, ed...@pettijohn-web.com wrote: > > Take a look at fdm. It can be used to fetch from imap/pop and deliver > locally or take messages from stdin and deliver them. The config allows > for piping through and executing external commands. Its syntax is > similar to pf. > Sorry, not for me, as you say, fdm wants to talk to pop/imap. The situation where I use procmail I am using it in my .forward so the filtering happens when the mail is delivered. I wonder how hard it would be to fix the issues found by the fuzzers. To my mind, just because the code base is old doesn't mean it needs to be thrown out. Escpecially when nothing else covers the same functionality. -- Brett Lymn "We are were wolves", "You mean werewolves?", "No we were wolves, now we are something else entirely", "Oh"
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 10:29:04AM +1030, Brett Lymn wrote: > On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 10:16:22PM -0600, ed...@pettijohn-web.com wrote: > > > > The last maintainer of procmail says not to use it. Thats reason enough > > for me not to. > > > > https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports=141634350915839=2 > > > > Oh, wonderful. A quick search shows that the most likely replacement is > maildrop but that does not easily do some things that procmail will do > (e.g. pipe mail to a script which I can see people would consider > dangerous but damn convenient when processing automated messages) > > -- > Brett Lymn > "We are were wolves", > "You mean werewolves?", > "No we were wolves, now we are something else entirely", > "Oh" Take a look at fdm. It can be used to fetch from imap/pop and deliver locally or take messages from stdin and deliver them. The config allows for piping through and executing external commands. Its syntax is similar to pf. Edgar
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 10:16:22PM -0600, ed...@pettijohn-web.com wrote: > > The last maintainer of procmail says not to use it. Thats reason enough > for me not to. > > https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports=141634350915839=2 > Oh, wonderful. A quick search shows that the most likely replacement is maildrop but that does not easily do some things that procmail will do (e.g. pipe mail to a script which I can see people would consider dangerous but damn convenient when processing automated messages) -- Brett Lymn "We are were wolves", "You mean werewolves?", "No we were wolves, now we are something else entirely", "Oh"
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Julian H. Stacey wrote in <201901101322.x0adlrgi006...@fire.js.berklix.net>: |Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: |> Mayuresh wrote in <20190109131516.GA25962@localhost>: |>|On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 12:03:46PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote: ... |>|Thanks for a comprehensive reply. I am currently tending towards \ |>|mlmmj due |>|to the claims of smaller footprint as I'll be using a VPS to host this. |> |> It cannot do MIME out of the box, and it also had some problems ... |Back when BSD users were on my only mail list using 7 bit, it was easy. | |Then I added lists for sports & social locals. they mostly used |Microsoft, then their client software `enhanced' so they could |excrete font & size of the day, in colour, with national character |set extensions beyond Ascii, using MIME, then MS MUA providers left |MIME on by default & users didnt know to turn it off for lists, or |how to turn off, or to what advantages. HTML there is, too. But it is not that easy i would say, i have seen people using emoji and such Unicode characters on lists of established Unix people. And even more people use native language in the "xy wrote" quotation reference, which requires MIME for even premium-first world languages. (It depends however.) |Majordomo was not MIME aware, & MIME obscured the How To Unsubscribe |etc list footers majordomo appended (& of course users were too |dumb to look in list headers) so more admin time was wasted, so Yes. That was true for ml-something- mlmmj, too. |majordomo was abandoned. Mailman supports MIME. If there's a |possibility a mail list server might have to later support non tech |users, avoid server software that don't support MIME. | |Cheers, |Julian |-- |Julian Stacey, Computer Consultant Sys.Eng. BSD Linux Unix, Munich \ |Aachen Kent Mind you, down there im Weißwurscht Land, but here i would insist that it is München. Or at least Muenchen. Because the Föhn bläst so heiß. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer,The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Niels Dettenbach wrote in <2942379.yeRLTPdYb4@gongo>: |Am Donnerstag, 10. Januar 2019, 04:21:38 CET schrieb Mayuresh: ... |> - I do need a web archiver with thread view etc. (and ability to write |just enable "list archive" by click in mailman admin gui. | |> text pattern searches of my own on the mail texts), for which there |> might be alternatives that do just that - archiving. (E.g. HyperKitty |> which mailman uses, which can be used standalone also.) |You may use grep or similiar on the archive files, but these are just raw. That is surprisingly complicated if you want the correct order however (due to the way date based names are used). That is, i could donate a simply AWK/Unix tools (thus line) based CGI script which searches in the text archives of Mailman in case of interest. I call it brutesearch.sh. It works pretty fine, especially for Unix people who are used to linewise searching. One thing i really dislike here is that you need to manually adjust the HTML templates each and every time to include the search form. (Again there may be a mechanism which avoids that.) |There are many types of existing setups with some search / indexer \ |software |to advance mailmans archive with search functionality. | |or just (if it's a public archive): |https://wiki.list.org/DOC/How%20do%20I%20make%20the%20archives%20searchable Well, i am just saving MBOX in addition to the normal Mailman "pipermail" text dump for archiving purposes (for hopefully a better future), and use this simple shell script i have mentioned for searching. It works pretty well. Just ask if you want it. It has no dependencies but awk, printf, find, sort and xargs. It can surely be improved too, but well. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer,The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Mayuresh wrote in <20190110020002.GB10716@localhost>: |On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 05:54:49PM +0100, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: |> when i used it. (There should be posts on their ML on that, |> a couple of years back.) If your users use MIME you have to hook |> in scripts, and then it becomes more expensive... Having said |> that, AlpineLinux seems to use it for their MLs, and it seems to |> work. But there all people use 7-bit clean text mails only. | |Plain text restriction is suitable (in fact better from storage point of |view) for my purpose but can't "fix" everybody's mail client. Most people |won't do that. So, yes, if I have to process (such as throw away MIME and |retain only text) it will add up. And/or do not use footer or such injections otherwise, it will render the message invalid. (Therefore i heave only injected header fields, because i definitely did not want to add some MIME wrapper. "Retain only text" means there are only natively american speaking people i will assume.) |BTW I am not too sure whether mlmmj's mailing list is active. 2018 is |conspicuously absent in the archives[1]. (At least archives are not being |produced, but how can it remain in that state.) I see. Ah, i was posting in February 2016. Ah, yes, do not set memorymailsize but to 0 if you want identical behaviour for messages which fit it and those which do not. Do set moderators otherwise it crashes. I seem to recall that my moderator did not get some messages somehow, which was the final reason why i have switched to mailman (later on). These (but the last, which definetely could have been postfix misconfiguration also, but i do not think so) are all corner cases, however. |I enquired about this on their list and hardly drew any response - except |from 1 user who echoed similar concern. I have to assume their ML to be |deeply dormant if not dead. Maybe your message simply was not "meaningful" enough. Mr. Schmitt seems to make fine differentiations (citing his last response to the other thread in February 2016), maybe not only for me, but also for you! You could start your messages with "i am _not_ a friend of .." to get yourself started. ;) It could help! Other than that, on my VM i see GNU mailman processing messages to list members in intervals of two seconds (two seconds/one message), which is possibly also a misconfiguration however (as it is hard to believe other lists could be driven with it like that). A nice day i wish, --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer,The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 02:21:53PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote: > If there's a possibility a mail list server might have to later support > non tech users, avoid server software that don't support MIME. In order of importance I think a mailing list does the following: 1. bounce / forward the mails to a list of registered addresses. 2. Maintain web archives: MIME may be possibly an issue here. 3. Administration - such as subscribe / unsubscribe etc. MIME may matter here. If: For #1 I use postfix/procmail/equivalent (MTA/MDA) instead of an MLM. For #2 use a MIME aware archiver (not sure which, HyperKitty to name one that mailman 3 uses) While #3 does not matter much to me (will maintain list manually for a more or less static group) Then: Am I missing any MIME related issues? Mayuresh
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: > Mayuresh wrote in <20190109131516.GA25962@localhost>: > |On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 12:03:46PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote: > |> But I gradually ran more public lists for non techs, including some > |> self admitted completely clueless & some other immeasurably lazy > |> users, many of whom cant think or refuse to think, love to argue, > |> & freak at command line etc, so the support load on unpaid volunteer > |> admin time became intolerable, & I was depserate for a list manager > |> with graphical clickey support to seperate myself from user support. > |> (Though mailman can be CLI driven too I recall) > | > |Thanks for a comprehensive reply. I am currently tending towards mlmmj due > |to the claims of smaller footprint as I'll be using a VPS to host this. > > It cannot do MIME out of the box, and it also had some problems > when i used it. (There should be posts on their ML on that, > a couple of years back.) If your users use MIME you have to hook > in scripts, and then it becomes more expensive... Having said > that, AlpineLinux seems to use it for their MLs, and it seems to > work. But there all people use 7-bit clean text mails only. Back when BSD users were on my only mail list using 7 bit, it was easy. Then I added lists for sports & social locals. they mostly used Microsoft, then their client software `enhanced' so they could excrete font & size of the day, in colour, with national character set extensions beyond Ascii, using MIME, then MS MUA providers left MIME on by default & users didnt know to turn it off for lists, or how to turn off, or to what advantages. Majordomo was not MIME aware, & MIME obscured the How To Unsubscribe etc list footers majordomo appended (& of course users were too dumb to look in list headers) so more admin time was wasted, so majordomo was abandoned. Mailman supports MIME. If there's a possibility a mail list server might have to later support non tech users, avoid server software that don't support MIME. Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey, Computer Consultant Sys.Eng. BSD Linux Unix, Munich Aachen Kent Brexit referendum stole 700,000 votes from Brits in EU, 3.7 million globally+ 1.9 M too young to vote + 1.3 M died, mostly Leavers. Electoral fines & lies. Government of national unity to avoid Brexit chaos, revoke Art. 50 & new ref. if we re-issue with more time. Email your MP http://berklix.org/brexit/#mp
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Am Donnerstag, 10. Januar 2019, 04:21:38 CET schrieb Mayuresh: > - Do I really need a specialized mail manager software or can I just use > .forward (or procmail) to bounce the mails to registered members? There are a lot of people who manage a "mailing list" by their mail client. But even if they use BCC for "hiding" the recipients, there are email system who do not "filter out" BCC addresses - so this is a security leak, as a lot of spammers and viruses today use the email content archive of hacked systems to find valid addresses. list processors like mailman provider much more then just "mass mailing" - they handle and filter bounces, answers and memberships semi to full automatic. and most mail servers just allow a limited amount of recipients or smtp commands in one email. so larger mail "explodings" has to be batched wisely. But more important: they provide Email Headers which are required for email lists and typical list management / usage of clients. > - I do not need automated subscribe / unsubscribe, this being for a closed > group of size not exceeding 300/350. Manual registration, with very > occasional changes is fine. This hardly depends from what you look for. If you just want to send a "newsletter" once a month this may be OK for i.e. up to 50 recievers, but if you have more recievers the amount of work for maintaining the list is getting significantly higher then setting up a mailman list. The most of the lists we host for customers have less then 300 users. few of them of then only have 30. if a user exoperience the comfort, they usually do not use any "hand built lists" anymore for me then a few recipients. in europe it is difficult to provide such a "hand list" by law, users should be allow to unsubscribe with "one click". setting up mailman is not a big thing - even filling it up with a larger list of recipient addresses and names (just copy in addresses linewise (including names evenpossible with "Name ") i.e. - from a calc/excel export or similiar). usually even a closed list have to be managed by a admin - including unwanted postings or spam treatments. mailman offers web gui and console tools fir such things we use exim as MTA/MDA SMTP service as it is perfectly to configure for mailman and very ressource efficient in handling mass mail in different ways. - I need "member-only" restriction for posting to the list email id, which I think procmail can manage. This is much easier to handle with mailman - after setup. It offers web access for the list members too, headers / footers, auto "cleaning" of Headers (i.e. MDS requests etc.) btw.. This may be done with a compley procmail and fiddeling by hand too, archiving., archive management and much more - but hey, mailman does this out of the box / default while it allows any thinkable list processing setup. > - I do need a web archiver with thread view etc. (and ability to write just enable "list archive" by click in mailman admin gui. > text pattern searches of my own on the mail texts), for which there > might be alternatives that do just that - archiving. (E.g. HyperKitty > which mailman uses, which can be used standalone also.) You may use grep or similiar on the archive files, but these are just raw. There are many types of existing setups with some search / indexer software to advance mailmans archive with search functionality. or just (if it's a public archive): https://wiki.list.org/DOC/How%20do%20I%20make%20the%20archives%20searchable good luck, niels. --- Niels Dettenbach Syndicat IT & Internet http://www.syndicat.com PGP: https://syndicat.com/pub_key.asc ---
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 09:33:09AM +0530, Mayuresh wrote: > On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 09:34:16PM -0600, ed...@pettijohn-web.com wrote: > > man aliases > > > > list-name:include:/path/to/file/with/aliases > > > > look into allow_mail_to_commands and allow_mail_to_files for postfix > > so that you can also pipe it to a script that saves it in some db. > > Thanks. It seems more economical to do it postfix level. Just that > procmail spec can be written without postfix/root privileges giving some > comfort on that aspect. > > Would there be some downsides of doing it with procmail - besides cpu > cycles? > > Mayuresh The last maintainer of procmail says not to use it. Thats reason enough for me not to. https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports=141634350915839=2 Edgar
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 09:34:16PM -0600, ed...@pettijohn-web.com wrote: > man aliases > > list-name:include:/path/to/file/with/aliases > > look into allow_mail_to_commands and allow_mail_to_files for postfix > so that you can also pipe it to a script that saves it in some db. Thanks. It seems more economical to do it postfix level. Just that procmail spec can be written without postfix/root privileges giving some comfort on that aspect. Would there be some downsides of doing it with procmail - besides cpu cycles? Mayuresh
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
=> On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 09:45:16PM +0530, Mayuresh wrote: => => After going through the nuances of some available solutions, I wonder: => => - Do I really need a specialized mail manager software or can I just use => .forward (or procmail) to bounce the mails to registered members? It is a brave new world of email that we live in, where certain large providers get to call the shots. For example, mail from Yahoo has its header signed, and bouncing it can invalidate the signature, causing Gmail to reject it. I had to configure my mailman to mangle the From header to appear as if it was from my server to get the mail to go through, and I don't think you can do that with .forward . Maybe I was doing something wrong, but it is something to watch out for. Good luck. Gary Duzan => - I do not need automated subscribe / unsubscribe, this being for a closed => group of size not exceeding 300/350. Manual registration, with very => occasional changes is fine. => => - I need "member-only" restriction for posting to the list email id, which => I think procmail can manage. => => - I do need a web archiver with thread view etc. (and ability to write => text pattern searches of my own on the mail texts), for which there => might be alternatives that do just that - archiving. (E.g. HyperKitty => which mailman uses, which can be used standalone also.) => => Would appreciate views on whether I am missing something, if I do not use => a proper mailing list software for above requirement. => => Mayuresh => => =>
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 08:51:38AM +0530, Mayuresh wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 09:45:16PM +0530, Mayuresh wrote:
> > I am looking to set up a mailing list manager on a NetBSD server.
> >
> > The member count is more or less fixed between 300 to 350 and isn't going
> > to grow beyond.
> >
> > The email archive should be browsable and searchable through a web
> > interface. ("searchable" is less critical of the two requirements as even
> > google search can be used to search through the archive.)
> >
> > I need the email storage to be in text format so as to be able to write
> > tools of my own, on the server, to analyze the emails (say to grep
> > patterns or even to do NLP).
>
> After going through the nuances of some available solutions, I wonder:
>
> - Do I really need a specialized mail manager software or can I just use
> .forward (or procmail) to bounce the mails to registered members?
man aliases
list-name:include:/path/to/file/with/aliases
look into allow_mail_to_commands and allow_mail_to_files for postfix
so that you can also pipe it to a script that saves it in some db.
>
> - I do not need automated subscribe / unsubscribe, this being for a closed
> group of size not exceeding 300/350. Manual registration, with very
> occasional changes is fine.
>
> - I need "member-only" restriction for posting to the list email id, which
> I think procmail can manage.
I don't use postfix but I'm sure there is a way to restrict this with
some sort of access map.
Edgar
>
> - I do need a web archiver with thread view etc. (and ability to write
> text pattern searches of my own on the mail texts), for which there
> might be alternatives that do just that - archiving. (E.g. HyperKitty
> which mailman uses, which can be used standalone also.)
>
> Would appreciate views on whether I am missing something, if I do not use
> a proper mailing list software for above requirement.
>
> Mayuresh
>
>
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 09:45:16PM +0530, Mayuresh wrote:
> I am looking to set up a mailing list manager on a NetBSD server.
>
> The member count is more or less fixed between 300 to 350 and isn't going
> to grow beyond.
>
> The email archive should be browsable and searchable through a web
> interface. ("searchable" is less critical of the two requirements as even
> google search can be used to search through the archive.)
>
> I need the email storage to be in text format so as to be able to write
> tools of my own, on the server, to analyze the emails (say to grep
> patterns or even to do NLP).
After going through the nuances of some available solutions, I wonder:
- Do I really need a specialized mail manager software or can I just use
.forward (or procmail) to bounce the mails to registered members?
- I do not need automated subscribe / unsubscribe, this being for a closed
group of size not exceeding 300/350. Manual registration, with very
occasional changes is fine.
- I need "member-only" restriction for posting to the list email id, which
I think procmail can manage.
- I do need a web archiver with thread view etc. (and ability to write
text pattern searches of my own on the mail texts), for which there
might be alternatives that do just that - archiving. (E.g. HyperKitty
which mailman uses, which can be used standalone also.)
Would appreciate views on whether I am missing something, if I do not use
a proper mailing list software for above requirement.
Mayuresh
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 05:54:49PM +0100, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: > when i used it. (There should be posts on their ML on that, > a couple of years back.) If your users use MIME you have to hook > in scripts, and then it becomes more expensive... Having said > that, AlpineLinux seems to use it for their MLs, and it seems to > work. But there all people use 7-bit clean text mails only. Plain text restriction is suitable (in fact better from storage point of view) for my purpose but can't "fix" everybody's mail client. Most people won't do that. So, yes, if I have to process (such as throw away MIME and retain only text) it will add up. BTW I am not too sure whether mlmmj's mailing list is active. 2018 is conspicuously absent in the archives[1]. (At least archives are not being produced, but how can it remain in that state.) I enquired about this on their list and hardly drew any response - except from 1 user who echoed similar concern. I have to assume their ML to be deeply dormant if not dead. Mayuresh [1] http://mlmmj.org/archive/mlmmj/
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 12:18:11PM -0500, Amitai Schleier wrote: > ezmlm is still for qmail, but with the current state of pkgsrc that oughtn't > be a huge constraint. I'd suggest mail/ezmlm-idx over mail/ezmlm to get more > features that are typically useful, and mail/qmail-run to integrate easily > into /etc/rc.conf. > > If I couldn't run qmail I'd look at mlmmj. In any case, it's probably time > that we bring it from wip into pkgsrc proper. ezmlm and idx look dormant with last release in 1997 and 2014 respectively. (As I said before that might just be psychological factor.) Besides I am all set on postfix and would have inertia to change that for the sake of a mailing list. wip/mlmmj has a strange TODO line: CVE-2009-4896 I wrote to the maintainer, but haven't got any response. If someone could clarify that TODO, I can request to move it to pkgsrc on the list or file a PR. Mayuresh
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On 8 Jan 2019, at 20:35, Mayuresh wrote: Had come across Ezmlm, but it said it is "for qmail". Thought that might become a constraint. ezmlm is still for qmail, but with the current state of pkgsrc that oughtn't be a huge constraint. I'd suggest mail/ezmlm-idx over mail/ezmlm to get more features that are typically useful, and mail/qmail-run to integrate easily into /etc/rc.conf. If I couldn't run qmail I'd look at mlmmj. In any case, it's probably time that we bring it from wip into pkgsrc proper.
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Mayuresh wrote in <20190109131516.GA25962@localhost>: |On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 12:03:46PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote: |> But I gradually ran more public lists for non techs, including some |> self admitted completely clueless & some other immeasurably lazy |> users, many of whom cant think or refuse to think, love to argue, |> & freak at command line etc, so the support load on unpaid volunteer |> admin time became intolerable, & I was depserate for a list manager |> with graphical clickey support to seperate myself from user support. |> (Though mailman can be CLI driven too I recall) | |Thanks for a comprehensive reply. I am currently tending towards mlmmj due |to the claims of smaller footprint as I'll be using a VPS to host this. It cannot do MIME out of the box, and it also had some problems when i used it. (There should be posts on their ML on that, a couple of years back.) If your users use MIME you have to hook in scripts, and then it becomes more expensive... Having said that, AlpineLinux seems to use it for their MLs, and it seems to work. But there all people use 7-bit clean text mails only. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer,The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Am Mittwoch, 9. Januar 2019, 12:03:46 CET schrieben Sie: > Mayuresh wrote: > > I am looking to set up a mailing list manager on a NetBSD server. We productively use mailman from pkgsrc since many years. NetBSD is a nice platform for this. ß) > My max on biggest list is maybe 250+, but some mailman installations > run much bigger No prob with tenthousands of list members and more - your internet mail service has to allow / handle this (if you did not run it byself too), what is more typical the "bottleneck" for most users rising in such scale. For search we use external services like google, but it should be easy to set up any type of own search indexer / software for this locally. hth, good luck, niels. -- --- Niels Dettenbach Syndicat IT & Internet http://www.syndicat.com PGP: https://syndicat.com/pub_key.asc ---
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 12:03:46PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote: > But I gradually ran more public lists for non techs, including some > self admitted completely clueless & some other immeasurably lazy > users, many of whom cant think or refuse to think, love to argue, > & freak at command line etc, so the support load on unpaid volunteer > admin time became intolerable, & I was depserate for a list manager > with graphical clickey support to seperate myself from user support. > (Though mailman can be CLI driven too I recall) Thanks for a comprehensive reply. I am currently tending towards mlmmj due to the claims of smaller footprint as I'll be using a VPS to host this. Above para in your reply is something that really forewarns me about what I might almost certainly run into in a year or two ... I'd probably stick to a techy list for now and leave the rest to the future. Mayuresh
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Mayuresh wrote:
> I am looking to set up a mailing list manager on a NetBSD server.
I moved from majordomo to mailman on a freebsd server,
I wouldnt expect difficulty on netbsd either. I've been very happy
with mailman, more functionality than majordomo.
> The member count is more or less fixed between 300 to 350 and isn't going
> to grow beyond.
My max on biggest list is maybe 250+, but some mailman installations
run much bigger
> The email archive should be browsable and searchable through a web
> interface. ("searchable" is less critical of the two requirements as even
> google search can be used to search through the archive.)
Browsable yes. Searchable ? Maybe not
As https://www.freebsd.org/community/mailinglists.html
contains
"You can search or browse the mailing list archives at
www.FreeBSD.org. It is also possible to browse the mailing lists
via the Mailman Web interface."
I suspect mailman may not support that internaly.
Better ask on mailman users list.
> I need the email storage to be in text format so as to be able to write
> tools of my own, on the server, to analyze the emails (say to grep
> patterns or even to do NLP).
Just hours ago I inspected & deleted archives of list
http://mailman.berklix.org/mailman/listinfo/ctm-src-12
so yes I can confirm plain text. Grep'able
> Lastly it needs to be available in pkgsrc.
No idea. I used to use NetBSD, & would happily again if need arose,
but I don't currently as keeping up on 1 OS is less work than 2
If by chance Mailman is not supported yet, grab & convert to NetBSD:
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/mail/mailman/
> I first looked up majordomo as that's the one NetBSD mailing lists use.
> But looks like it is not an active project, with last release being in
> 2000.
I recall there was a majordomo2, & there was also a MajorCool web interface
but I think not widely adpopted. I upgraded to mailman instead
Only problem I had was I didnt know how to import my old majordomo
archives to mailman. I still dont know, ran out of time.
> Saw mailman and sympa to be talked about more and there is a nice
> comparison here[1].
>
> Would appreciate inputs on this.
>
> An OT question: Does NetBSD mailing list prefer majordomo or it's a legacy
> with no specific reason to change (or are there thoughts about changing
> it?)
I imagine netbsd.org has no particular need of mailman for its own
lists, as skilled tech savy computer people. I was equaly happy
with a legacy majordomo on berklix.org while I just ran lists for
BSD users & other tech savy users who could use command line intefaces
& for users who could & would actualy Think.
But I gradually ran more public lists for non techs, including some
self admitted completely clueless & some other immeasurably lazy
users, many of whom cant think or refuse to think, love to argue,
& freak at command line etc, so the support load on unpaid volunteer
admin time became intolerable, & I was depserate for a list manager
with graphical clickey support to seperate myself from user support.
(Though mailman can be CLI driven too I recall)
> > > Mayuresh >
> [1] https://www.sympa.org/documentation/mailmanvssympa.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mailing_list_software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Mailman
https://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/
Cheers,
Julian
--
Julian Stacey, Computer Consultant Sys.Eng. BSD Linux Unix, Munich Aachen Kent
First referendum stole 700,000 votes from Brits in EU; 3,700,000 globaly.
Lies criminal funded; jobs pound & markets down. 1.9M new voters 1.3M dead.
Email MP: "A new referendum will buy UK & EU more time (Art 50.3), to avoid
a hard crash, & consider all options." http://berklix.org/brexit/#mp
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Jan 8, 2019 7:49 PM, Mayuresh wrote: > > On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 11:21:30AM -0600, Edgar Pettijohn wrote: > > > Lastly it needs to be available in pkgsrc. > > > > > > > I'm not sure if it is in pkgsrc but mlmmj is nice. > > Thanks. Seems to be a successor of ezmlm. But looks like it is not > constrained to work with qmail like ezmlm. > > Seems to be in pkgsrc-wip. For a production use I'd tend to have a little > bias towards pkgsrc. > > Still, are there things with mlmmj that you can mention as specific likes? > I'd even look at slimness and compact resource footprint as pluses. > > Mayuresh It's just super simple. Sometimes less is more :) Edgar
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 07:19:41AM +0530, Mayuresh wrote: > > I'm not sure if it is in pkgsrc but mlmmj is nice. > > Thanks. Seems to be a successor of ezmlm. But looks like it is not > constrained to work with qmail like ezmlm. > > Seems to be in pkgsrc-wip. For a production use I'd tend to have a little > bias towards pkgsrc. > > Still, are there things with mlmmj that you can mention as specific likes? > I'd even look at slimness and compact resource footprint as pluses. Some more search shows that simplicity and resource footprint are indeed the things people like about mlmmj. Given the liking of this community for such attributes, I wonder how mlmmj managed to lurk around in wip so long! IMO it should get an entry into pkgsrc. I noticed TODOs in wip and the release looks a bit old. Will try to work with the maintainers. But one of the major limitations, as far as my requirement, is its lack of web archive. There is no builtin feature though there are different projects (mentioned in mlmmj documentation[1]) that produce a web archive. Guess, that would need another wip project. Mayuresh [1] http://mlmmj.org/docs/readme-archives/
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 11:21:30AM -0600, Edgar Pettijohn wrote: > > Lastly it needs to be available in pkgsrc. > > > > I'm not sure if it is in pkgsrc but mlmmj is nice. Thanks. Seems to be a successor of ezmlm. But looks like it is not constrained to work with qmail like ezmlm. Seems to be in pkgsrc-wip. For a production use I'd tend to have a little bias towards pkgsrc. Still, are there things with mlmmj that you can mention as specific likes? I'd even look at slimness and compact resource footprint as pluses. Mayuresh
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 05:54:29PM -0500, Greg Troxel wrote: > Besides those, you may want to look at > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezmlm > but that appears to have been released in 1997. Had come across Ezmlm, but it said it is "for qmail". Thought that might become a constraint. 1997 looks scary as well - I know that's not a particularly objective remark, may be just psychological. For same reason I am not considering majordomo, though as a user of several majordomo lists I never faced any problem. Mayuresh
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
Mayuresh writes: > I first looked up majordomo as that's the one NetBSD mailing lists use. > But looks like it is not an active project, with last release being in > 2000. > > Saw mailman and sympa to be talked about more and there is a nice > comparison here[1]. Besides those, you may want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezmlm but that appears to have been released in 1997. Perhaps it has no bugs and no updates are necessary :-) If I were faced with this problem, and didn't have time to research, I would pick mailman. I would expect that if I did research I'd still end up with mailman. Expect to spedn several hours setting up any mailinglist manager.
Re: Mailing list manager on NetBSD
On Jan 8, 2019 10:15 AM, Mayuresh wrote:
>
> I am looking to set up a mailing list manager on a NetBSD server.
>
> The member count is more or less fixed between 300 to 350 and isn't going
> to grow beyond.
>
> The email archive should be browsable and searchable through a web
> interface. ("searchable" is less critical of the two requirements as even
> google search can be used to search through the archive.)
>
> I need the email storage to be in text format so as to be able to write
> tools of my own, on the server, to analyze the emails (say to grep
> patterns or even to do NLP).
>
> Lastly it needs to be available in pkgsrc.
>
I'm not sure if it is in pkgsrc but mlmmj is nice.
http://mlmmj.org
> I first looked up majordomo as that's the one NetBSD mailing lists use.
> But looks like it is not an active project, with last release being in
> 2000.
>
> Saw mailman and sympa to be talked about more and there is a nice
> comparison here[1].
>
> Would appreciate inputs on this.
>
> An OT question: Does NetBSD mailing list prefer majordomo or it's a legacy
> with no specific reason to change (or are there thoughts about changing
> it?)
>
>
> Mayuresh
>
> [1] https://www.sympa.org/documentation/mailmanvssympa.html
