mlmmj mailing list managing made joyful

To create a new list follow steps 1-5 and optionally you can also do steps 6-10.

1. Configure a recipient delimiter. The default is to use '+', and in Postfix it's done by adding
   

   recipient_delimiter = +
   

   to /etc/postfix/main.cf. In Exim it can be done by adding

   local_part_suffix = +*
   local_part_suffix_optional
   

   to the "userforward:" and the "localuser:" router in /etc/exim/exim.conf, and also add "local_part_suffix = +*" to the system_aliases function. Also make sure that exim will add the envelope from in the Return-Path: header.

   There is a nice FAQ explaining recipient delimiter configuration here

   The "delimiter" tunable configures this on a per list basis

2. Create the mailinglist. There's a script, mlmmj-make-ml.sh, that will make a mailinglist for mlmmj. It is highly recommended to use this script to make the lists! What is does is described here:

   In the case of a list called mlmmj-test below /var/spool/mlmmj it makes the
   following directories:

    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/incoming
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/queue
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/queue/discarded
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/archive
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/text
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/subconf
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/unsubconf
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/bounce
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/control
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/moderation
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/subscribers.d
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/digesters.d
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/nomailsubs.d
    /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/requeue
   

   NOTE: The mailinglist directory (/var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test in our example) have to be owned by the user the mailserver writes as. On some Postfix installations Postfix is run by the user postfix, but still writes files as nobody:nogroup or nobody:nobody

3. Make the changes to your mailserver aliases that came as output from mlmmj-make-ml.sh. Following the example above they will look like this:
   

   mlmmj-test:     "|/usr/bin/mlmmj-recieve -L /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test"
   

   NOTE: Don't forget newaliases.

4. Start mlmmj-maintd (remember full path when starting it!) or add it to crontab with -F switch. The recommended way for now is to run it via cron:
   

    "0 */2 * * *  /usr/bin/mlmmj-maintd -F -L /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test"
   

   It should be started as root, as mlmmj-maintd will become the user owning the listdir (/var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test), and log it's last maintenance run to listdir/mlmmj-maintd.lastrun.log.

   If you have several lists below /var/spool/mlmmj you can use -d:

    /usr/bin/mlmmj-maintd -F -d /var/spool/mlmmj
   

5. If you want to you can pre-subscribe some people
   

   /usr/bin/mlmmj-sub -L /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/ -a joe@domain.tld
   

6. If you want custom headers like X-Mailinglist, Reply-To: etc. just add a file called 'customheaders' in the list control/ directory like this:
   

       $ cat /var/spool/mlmmj/mlmmj-test/control/customheaders
       X-Mailinglist: mlmmj-test
       Reply-To: mlmmj-test@domain.tld
   

7. If you want every mail to have something like:
   

   -- 
   To unsubscribe send a mail to coollist+unsubscribe@lists.domain.net
   

   Just add what you want to a file named "footer" in the same dir as "customheader" (listdir/control/).

8. If you want a prefix on the subject, to make it look like this:
   

   Subject: [mlmmj-test] how are we doing?
   

   Simply do

   echo "[mlmmj-test]" > control/prefix

9. For having a moderated list, simply create a file called 'moderated' in the control/ directory. Moderators are added to a file called 'moderators' in the control/ dir as well.
10. Have a look at the file TUNABLES for runtime configurable things.