MAJORDOMO(8)

NAME
Majordomo - manage multiple mailing lists

SYNOPSIS
Majordomo

DESCRIPTION
Majordomo is a perl script which automates the management of Internet mailing lists. It is executed via electronic mail; users send e-mail to Majordomo with instructions in the body of the message, and the perl script performs the requested actions and responds with the results. Any text in the "Subject:" line is ignored.

COMMANDS
Majordomo understands the following commands (arguments in "[]" are optional):

subscribe list [address]

Subscribe yourself (or address if specified) to the named list.

unsubscribe list [address]

Unsubscribe yourself (or address if specified) from the named list. If list is ``*'' (an asterisk), unsubscribe from all lists on this Majordomo server.

auth special-word subscribe list address

If the list subscribe policy setting includes +confirm, Majordomo will ask for confirmation before a subscription is approved. The conformation request will show the special-word to send with auth .

get list file

Get the file related to list.

index list

Return an index of the files you can get associated with list.

which [address]

Find out to which lists you (or address if specified) are subscribed.

who list

Find out who is on the named list.

info list

Retrieve the general introductory information for the named list.

intro list

Retrieve the introductory message sent to new users of list. Non-subscribers may not be able to retrieve this.

lists

Show the lists served by this Majordomo server. It will also show a 50 character list description if one has been provided.

help

Retrieve an informational message, a brief synopsis of the user portion of this manual page.

end

Stop processing commands (useful if your mailer adds a signature).

A command may be split across multiple lines if all of the lines in the command except the last end with a backslash "\".

In addition, the owner of the list can issue the following commands:

approve password subscribe list address

Instruct Majordomo to add address to list. The password is required to authenticate the list owner. This is very weak authentication as the password is transmitted in the clear in an e-mail message. No claims are made that it will provide anything other than rudimentary protection against abuse of the Majordomo server.

approve password unsubscribe list address

Instruct Majordomo to delete address from list. The password is required to authenticate the list owner. See the comments above regarding the password.

newinfo list password

Update the informational message for list with the text which follows on subsequent lines. No formatting of the message occurs, so the list owner should be careful to constrain the message to eighty columns. Majordomo will include everything up to the string EOF or to the end of the mail message, whichever comes first. This is useful in case the owner wants to verify the new message immediately, e.g.,

    To: majordomo

    newinfo list password

    This is new information for the "list" list.

    EOF

    info list

    This will simultaneously update the information for the list, and then retrieve it for verification. Note that blank lines are preserved in the message.

newintro list password

Similar to newinfo , but updates the (optional) introductory message sent to new list subscribers. passwd list old-password new-password

Replace the password for list with new-password.

config list password

retrieve a self-documenting configuration file for the list <list>. The password can be the password contained in the file <listname>.passwd or the admin_password in the configuration file.

newconfig list password

Validates and installs a new configuration file. The config file includes everything up to the string EOF or to the end of the mail message, whichever comes first. The config file is expected to be a complete config file as returned by the "config" command. Incremental changing of the config file is not yet supported. As soon as the config file is validated and installed its settings are available for use. This is useful to remember if you have multiple commands in your mail message since they will be subject to the settings of the new config file. If there is an error in the config file (incorrect value...), the config file will not be accepted and the error message identifying the problem line(s) will be returned to the sender. Note that only the errors are returned to the sender not the entire config file.

writeconfig list password

Write a new config in standard form. All of the config file documentation is optional. Only the keywords and values are necessary. If a config file, stripped of all comments is installed using newconfig, that is what is returned by config. Writeconfig forces a rewrite of the config file with all comments and default values in place. It is useful to use after an upgrade of majordomo since it will add the new keywords for people to change. It also updates the documentation in the file if that has changed.

mkdigest
    digest-list-name [ outgoing-address ] password

This will force a digest for the specified list to be created. It is most useful if you don't have an account on the machine that handles the digest for your list. The optional outgoing-address will override the default address, listname-outgoing, for distributing the digests; this is usually done for security.

CONFIGURATION
(Note that this section has not been updated to majordomo version 1.90). Majordomo supports open and closed lists. An open list is one to which anyone can subscribe themselves. A subscription request sent to Majordomo for a closed list is forwarded to the owner of the list for approval. If a user tries to subscribe an address which is different from their own (for example, a local list exploder), Majordomo will forward the request to the list owner for approval, regardless of the open or closed status of the list.

Majordomo depends on the existence of certain system mail aliases. The first three are for running the perl script on incoming e-mail and specifying the responsible person in charge of the server:

majordomo: "|/usr/local/mail/majordomo/wrapper majordomo"

majordomo-owner: brent

owner-majordomo: brent

These next few aliases are for a list called "sample":

sample: :include:/usr/local/mail/lists/sample

owner-sample: sample-owner

sample-request: "|/usr/local/mail/majordomo/wrapper request-answer sample"

owner-sample-request: sample-owner

sample-owner: brent

sample-approval: brent

FILES
/etc/majordomo.cf

/usr/local/lib/mail/majordomo/

BUGS
This man page has not been fully updated to conform to majordomo 1.90.

AUTHORS
Majordomo and most of the ancillary perl code was written by Brent Chapman, <brent@GreatCircle.COM>. The latest version of the code is available by anonymous FTP from FTP.GreatCircle.COM, in directory pub/majordomo. This man page was written by Jim Duncan, <jim@math.psu.edu>. Minimal update of the man page by John Rouillard <rouilj@cs.umb.edu>.