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A list of options which are supported by IS at the University of Birmingham is available below. In order to set or change an option, fetch the current configuration file, add the option if it is not present or change the setting if it is present, then install the new configuration file with the newconfig command (see above). Commands have a default value; this is the one used if the command is absent. Some of the descriptions are based on the text in the default config file which is supplied with majordomo. All of the available options are also documented within the majorcool web interface when changing configuration options. List of Supported Options The following are
supported: Click on the option or scroll down for details: This option (yes by default) looks for administrative requests in messages (e.g. subscribe/unsubscribe) and forwards them to the list maintainer instead of the list. To disable this, set it to no. administrivia = no Normally, lists are all listed by the list command. This option can restrict the advertising to various groups of addresses. The addresses to be matched are specified as an array of Perl style regular expressions. When the option is not set or no expressions are specified and the option appears as follows, all addresses are matched. advertise << END Perl regular expressions allow matching of various patters of characters. If you are familiar with these, quite complex patterns can be matched. However, for most purposes, the restriction required will be relatively simple. The example below will restrict advertising to people whose address contains "bham.ac.uk". This would effectively mean that the list would not be seen in a lists command to people mailing from outside the campus. advertise << END More patterns can follow on separate lines and the list is terminated by END. If the noadvertise option is in use, this overrides the advertise option. If this is set to
yes or is not present, the list owner will be informed of anyone joining
or leaving the list. It is strongly recommended that this is not changed
because of the danger of misuse of the list. announcements = no This option specifies how resend bounces are to be handled: mailed to the approval address for header-based approval, stored on the list server for Web-based approval, or both. If store alone is selected mail is sent to the approval address when new messages are stored for approval. The settings are called mail, store and mail+store. It is strongly recommended that this is set to store, particularly if you are using Outlook or a similar program to send email. The limitations of such mail clients make mail based approval of bounced messages very diffiult, and in some cases impossible. This option puts the date for the info file at the top if it is set to yes. If it is set to no, it is appended at the bottom. date_info = yes This option puts the date for the intro file at the top if it is set to yes. If it is set to no, it is appended at the bottom. date_intro = yes If set, this is used as a description for mailing list when majordomo replies to the lists command. There is only room for 50 or so characters. For example description = This list is about trees. This option controls use of the "get" command and can take one of three values: open, list, closed. Open allows anyone access to the get command and closed completely disables the command. get_access = closed If the command is not present, it is equivalent to being set to list, which allows members of the list to use get, unless restrict_post is in use when only addresses in the specified files can use the command. This allows people to fetch the info file about the list. The option can take one of three values: open, list, closed. Open allows anyone access to the get command and closed completely disables the command. info_access = closed If the command is not present, it is equivalent to being set to list, which allows members of the list to use get, unless restrict_post is in use when only addresses in the specified files can use the command. Open tends to be the most useful option; even for a very private and closed lists as the info file can be used to explain that the list is private. This allows people to fetch the intro file for the list. The option can take one of three values: open, list, closed. Open allows anyone access to the get command and closed completely disables the command. intro_access = closed If the command is not present, it is equivalent to being set to list, which allows members of the list to use get, unless restrict_post is in use when only addresses in the specified files can use the command. This sets the maximum size of an unapproved message in characters. If the command is not present, the limit will be 40000. For most lists, this will be plenty, particularly if they have a large membership on many systems. However, if attachments are sent (eg. word documents) the number will be inadequate. To set the limit, use the number of characters you wish to set the limit to. For example if you wish to have a limit of approximately a megabyte, set maxlength to 1000000. maxlength = 1000000 Take care when choosing values. Whilst most systems can send large messages and the central mail hubs and majordomo can handle messages of tens of megabytes with now problem, many campus systems have problems handling files of more than a few megabytes. This allows text to be appended at the end of all messages posted to the list. If certain variables are present, they are expanded before being used. The following variables are defined: $LIST - the name of the current list, $SENDER - the sender as taken from the from line and $VERSION, the version of majordomo. For example message_footer <<
END This allows text to be appended at the end of all messages posted to the list. If certain variables are present, they are expanded before being used. The following variables are defined: $LIST - the name of the current list, $SENDER - the sender as taken from the from line and $VERSION, the version of majordomo. For example message_fronter <<
END By default, lists are not moderated. If this option is set to yes, all postings to the list must be approved by the moderator, who is normally the owner of the list.
See the section entitled moderated lists for further details. This option can be used to specify a list moderator other than the list owner. All bounce messages are passed to the moderator. If the list is moderated (see the section entitled moderated lists), all messages are passed to this address for approval. For example, to set the moderator to the address A.N.Other@bham.ac.uk., the following would be set moderator = A.N.Other@bham.ac.uk note that the address must be fully qualified with the @ and full DNS address. If set to yes, a more flexible method is used to determine a match addresses. When set to yes, addresses of the form user@dom.ain.com are considered equivalent to addresses of the form user@ain.com. This is sometimes useful when using options which check addresses, such as restrict_post, who_access, subscribe and unsubscribe. mungedomain = yes This option uses a
set of Perl style regular expressions to prevent the listname from appearing
in the output of a lists command. If the sender's address matches one
of these regexps, then the list will not be listed in the output of a
lists command. Noadvertise noadvertise <<
END Put a reply-to header into the outgoing message. If the option is not set, replies will go to the sender or whatever the sender has put in the reply-to field. For some lists, you may wish to set the reply-to field to the list itself. reply_to = trees@bham.ac.uk If the value $SENDER
is used, then the address of the sender is used as the value reply-to
header. If this option is present only addresses listed in these files can post to the mailing list. These files are the names of lists. They are also checked when info_access, intro_access, which_access, or who_access is set to 'list'. See Restricted Posting Lists for further explanation about this option. The most common use is to restrict posting to the members of the list. For example restrict_post = trees This word will be prefixed to the subject line, if it is not already in the subject. The text is expanded before being used if any of the following variables are present: $LIST - the name of the current list, $SENDER - the sender as taken from the from line and, $VERSION, the version of majordomo. The listname is the most popular choice if this option is used. You may wish to put it in capitals to stand out from the rest of the subject. For example subject_prefix = TREES This can take one of three values: open, closed or auto plus an optional '+confirm'. Open allows people to subscribe themselves to the list. Auto allows anybody to subscribe anybody to the list without maintainer approval (this should never be used without +confirm). Closed requires list owner approval for all subscribe requests to the list. Adding '+confirm', ie, 'open+confirm', will cause majordomo to send a reply back to the subscriber which includes a authentication number which must be sent back in with another subscribe command. All lists are set up as open or closed, without the confirm option, depending on what was requested on the application form. subscribe_policy = open+confirm If any line of the contents of a message contains one of these Perl style regular expressions, then the message will be bounced for review. Sophisticated matches are possible if you are familiar with regular expressions, although simple words can be matched fairly easily. The following example would prevent messages containing the words "tentacles" or "bankers" from being transmitted to the list. taboo_body <<
END This can be used in
conjunction with taboo_headers to attempt to prevent obscenities from
being posted to lists or to prevent a persistent problem subject or poster.
However, the examples match the sequences of characters rather than discreet
words so there is a danger of accidentally matching the same character
sequence within an acceptable word (this is sometimes referred to as the
Scunthorpe problem). In order to avoid this, you can use \b, so that the
words are only matched if they have a non letter before and after them.
For example If any line of the message headers contains one of these Perl style regular expressions, then the message will be bounced for review. Sophisticated matches are possible if you are familiar with regular expressions, although simple words can be matched fairly easily. The following example would prevent messages containing the words "tentacles" or "bankers" from being transmitted to the list. taboo_headers <<
END This can be used in conjunction with taboo_body to attempt to prevent obscenities from being posted to lists or to prevent a persistent problem subject or poster. However, the examples match the sequences of characters rather than discreet words so there is a danger of accidentally matching the same character sequence within an acceptable word (this is sometimes referred to as the Scunthorpe problem). In order to avoid this, you can use \b, so that the words are only matched if they have a non letter before and after them. For example taboo_headers <<
END This option can take one of three values: open, closed, auto. Open allows people to unsubscribe themselves from the list. Auto allows anybody to unsubscribe anybody to the list without the owner's approval (not recommended). Closed requires maintainer approval for all unsubscribe requests to the list. This is set to open for all lists at the University of Birmingham. For some lists, such as official departmental distribution lists, closed may be a more suitable option. unsubscribe_policy = closed If this option is absent or set to yes, a welcome message with a copy of the info file (or optional 'intro' file) will be sent to the newly subscribed user. For some lists it may be useful to set this to "no". However, this is not normally a good idea as people may mistake the email as junk email if they are unaware that they have been added to the list or are unaware of the purpose of the list. The option is set to "no" in the following way. welcome = no This can be set to one of three values: open, list, or closed. Open allows anyone access to the which command. Closed completely disables the which command for everyone. List allows only list members access, or if restrict_post is defined, only the addresses in those files are allowed access to the which command. which_access = list This option can be used to restrict the use of the "who" command to members of the list. There are three values, "open", "closed" and "list". The default value is open. who_access = list will prevent anyone not on the list from using a "who" command. However, if the address does not match the address in the list exactly then the "who" command will fail. This option therefore has the potential to deny access to the "who" command to some genuine subscribers as their mail headers can vary. This effect can be reduced by use of the "mungedomain" option, which is more flexible in comparing the address that the email appears to come from. If the option is "closed", nobody can use the "who" command. Last Updated 06 June 2006. Please mail any comments to C.B.Bayliss@bham.ac.uk
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Introduction to
