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@@ -1,169 +1,151 @@ Mailman - The GNU Mailing List Management System -Copyright (C) 1998 by the Free Software Foundation, Inc. +Copyright (C) 1998,1999,2000 by the Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA - Background - ========== -This is Mailman, a mailing list management system written mostly in -Python. Mailman was originally developed by John Viega. Subsequent -development (through version 1.0b3) was by Ken Manheimer. Currently, -Mailman development is a group effort, led by John Viega, Ken -Manheimer, Barry Warsaw, and Scott Cotton, with contributions from -many - see the address of the mailman-developers list page, below. -See the Mailman home site for current status, including new releases -and known problems: http://www.list.org . +INTRODUCTION -To join the Mailman user's mailing list (recommended) - and to see an -example of a Mailman list interface in action - visit: + This is Mailman, a mailing list management system distributed + under the GNU Public License (GPL). The name of this project is + spelled "Mailman" with a leading capital `M' but with a lower case + second `m'. - http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users + Mailman is written primarily in Python, a free object-oriented + scripting language. There is some ANSI C code for security + purposes. -To track, and/or participate in, the mailman development crowd: + Mailman was originally developed by John Viega. Subsequent + development (through version 1.0b3) was by Ken Manheimer. Further + work towards the 1.0 final release was a group effort, with the + core contributors being: Barry Warsaw, Ken Manheimer, Scott + Cotton, Harald Meland, and John Viega. Version 1.0 and beyond + have been primarily maintained by Barry Warsaw with contributions + from many; see the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS file for details. - http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers + The Mailman home page is -See file NEWS for info on changes since v. 0.9 + http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman.html -Features: + which is mirrored at - o Most standard mailing list features, including: - moderation, mail based commands, digests, etc... - o An extensive Web interface, customizable on a per-list basis. - o Web based list administration interface for *all* admin-type tasks - o Automatic Web based hypermail-style archives (using pipermail or - other external archiver), including provisions for private archives - o Integrated mail list to newsgroup gatewaying - o Integrated newsgroup to mail list gatewaying (polling-based... if you - have access to the nntp server, you should be able to easily do - non-polling based news->mail list gatewaying; email viega@list.org, - I'd like to help get that going and come up - with instructions) - o Smart bounce detection and correction - o Integrated fast bulk mailing - o Smart spam protection - o Extensible logging - o Multiple list owners and moderators are possible - o Optional MIME-compliant digests - o Nice about which machine you subscribed from if you're from the - right domain + http://www.list.org + Mailman requires Python 1.5.2, which can be downloaded from -Here is a list of sites mirroring the Mailman ftp site + http://www.python.org - ftp://chimera.acm.jhu.edu/pub/mailman (thanks Corbett Klempay) + You will also need an ANSI C compiler; gcc (the GNU C compiler) + works just fine. Mailman currently works only on Unix-alike + operating systems (e.g. Solaris, Linux, etc.). + See the INSTALL file for installation instructions. If you are + upgrading from a previous version of Mailman, you need to read the + UPGRADING file for important information. - Using Mailman - ============= -Requirements: - The default mail delivery mechanism uses a direct SMTP connection to - whatever mail transport agent you have running on port 25. You can - thus use Mailman with any such MTA, however the script bin/newlist - still generates sendmail style aliases (this will be fixed). You - can also configure Mailman to use your MTA directly. +FEATURES - You will need root access on the machine running Mailman in order to - create a new account and group (see the INSTALL file for details). - You will also need write access to your Web server configuration and - MTA aliases file in order hook Mailman up to the Web and email. + Read the NEWS file for a list of changes since version 0.9. Read + the TODO file for our (extensive) wish list. You can see Mailman + in action at -Install: - Please see the file INSTALL for details on installing Mailman. In the - instructions that follow, all file paths are assumed to be relative to - the installation directory $prefix. + http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo -Adding a new list: - o Run the program bin/newlist - o Visit the list general admin page, and use the descriptions and - the "details" help feature to understand the configuration settings. + Mailman has most of the standard features you'd expect in a + mailing list manager, and more: -List managers, note that: + - Web based list administration for nearly all tasks. Web based + subscriptions and user configuration management. A customizable + "home page" for each mailing list. - o Being a list administrator does not entail receiving the traffic - - you have to subscribe, as well. - o Relevant urls - the DEFAULT_URL plus: - - mailman/listinfo/listname for public view of list - - mailman/admin/listname for options - - mailman/admindb/listname for pending requests - - and generally, mailman/listinfo for the list of (public) lists + - Privacy features such as moderation, open and closed list + subscription policies. -How to add a new user option + - Automatic web based archiving built-in with support for private + and public archives, and hooks for external archivers. - You'll need to do some of these things and not others. + - Per-user configuration optional digest delivery for either + MIME-compliant or RFC 934 style "plain text" digests. - 1) Add a flag to mm_defaults.py, and mm_cfg.py.dist if it's - likely to require a custom value for each site. - 2) Add an entry to mm_html GetStandardReplacements name - & mapping, to enable referring to the value from mailman html. - 3) Add replacements lines to the cgi/options and cgi/listinfo - scripts, to hook the mailman html up with the option. - 4) For user-specific options, make SetUserOption calls in - & cgi/handle_opts. - 5) For user-specific options, add to 2 data structs at top of - & mm_mailcmd. - 6) For user-specific options, add description to mm_mailcmd help - 7) Update templates if the options have replacements - 8) Use your option wherever appropriate... + - Integrated mail/Usenet gateways. -Interactive python sessions with mailing lists + - Majordomo-style email based commands. - You can do substantial things with mailing lists from the - interpreter! Include the mailman homedir on your shell python - path, or manually insert it on sys.path from within python, and - import Mailman.MailList and Mailman.Utils from within the - interpreter. You can instantiate the mailing list of your choice, - e.g. for a list named postal: + - Integrated bounce detection within an extensible framework. ->>> sys.path.insert(0, '/local/mailman') ->>> from Mailman import MailList, Utils ->>> l = MailList.MailList('postal', lock=0) + - Integrated spam detection. - (Don't set lock=0 if you're going to be changing the state of the - list, eg adding or removing members, etc. However, be aware that - while you're locking it you'll be blocking any other processes that - are trying to obtain the lock - including handling of new postings to - the list, subscriptions, administrative changes, and so forth.) + - An extensible mail delivery pipeline. - Now you can examine various aspects of the list: + - Support for virtual domains. ->>> l.members -['klm@python.org'] ->>> l.digest_members -[] ->>> l.real_name -'Postal' ->>> l._internal_name -'postal' +REQUIREMENTS - dir(l) will present the components of the list. MailList.py has - the descriptions of many of them, though some are defined in other - modules. + The default mail delivery mechanism uses a direct SMTP connection + to whatever mail transport agent you have running on port 25. You + can thus use Mailman with any such MTA, however the script + bin/newlist still generates sendmail style aliases (this will be + fixed). You can also configure Mailman to submit messages to your + MTA via command line invocation. - If you want to save changes, 'l.Save()' will do it. It's a real - good idea to play with trial lists, first, before using this - method to do surgery on production lists! + Mailman works with any web server that supports CGI. The HTML it + generates is pretty pedestrian and stingy on the graphics so it + should be friendly to most web browsers. - When you do get comfortable with it, you use it and a utility - routine, Utils.map_maillists(), to do batched changes on all - your lists. It takes a function as its argument, and applies that - function to every one of the lists on your system. For instance, - to get the names of all the lists on your system which are - advertised: + You will need root access on the machine hosting your Mailman + installation in order to complete some of the configuration + steps. See the INSTALL file for details. ->>> def advertised(lst): -... if lst.advertised: return lst.real_name -... ->>> advertised(l) ->>> filter(None, Utils.map_maillists(advertised)) -['Mailman-Developers', 'Meta-sig', 'Python-Help', 'C++-SIG', 'Matrix-SIG', -'DB-SIG', 'DO-SIG', 'Doc-SIG', 'GUI-SIG', 'Image-SIG', 'Objc-SIG', -'Plot-SIG', 'Pythonmac-SIG', 'String-SIG', 'Thread-SIG', 'Grail', 'XML-SIG', -'JPython-Interest', 'Trove-Dev', 'Mailman-Users'] +GETTING STARTED QUICKLY - Beware that "list surgery" can be easily used to foul up your list - data structures - so be careful, and confident of what you're - done *before* any list .Save()'s are applied... + These instructions assume that you are sitting in a shell in the + install directory (by default /home/mailman). + Once you've installed Mailman according to the INSTALL file, you + can create your first list by running the program bin/newlist. + bin/newlist will print out some aliases that you should add to + your /etc/aliases file (if you're running a sendmail compatible + MTA; see the various README files for more specific information). + + Next you should visit the your new list's admin page and set the + various configuration options that you want. + +FOR MORE INFORMATION + + Chris Kolar has made a list owner-oriented manual available from + the following URL + + http://www.aurora.edu/~ckolar/mailman/ + + There are also several mailing lists that can be used as resources + to help you get going with Mailman. + + Mailman-Announce + A read-only list for release announcements an other important + news. + + http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-announce + + Mailman-Users + An open list for users of Mailman, for posting questions or + problems related to installation, use, etc. We'll try to keep + the deep technical discussions off this list. + + http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users + + Mailman-Developers + An open list for those of you interested in helping develop + Mailman's future direction. This list will contain in-depth + technical discussions. + + Mailman-I18N + An open list for the discussion of the Mailman + internationalization effort. Multi-lingual patches are + available and will be integrated into the standard + distribution after the 2.0 release. + + Mailman-Checkins + A read-only list which is an adjunct to the public anonymous + CVS repository. You can stay on the bleeding edge of Mailman + development by subscribing to this list. Local Variables: |