Commit | Line | Data |
---|---|---|
5b62e993 MW |
1 | ezmlm is an easy-to-use, high-speed mailing list manager for qmail. |
2 | ||
3 | ezmlm lets users set up their own mailing lists within qmail's address | |
4 | hierarchy. A user, Joe, types | |
5 | ||
6 | ezmlm-make ~/SOS ~/.qmail-sos joe-sos isp.net | |
7 | ||
8 | and instantly has a functioning mailing list, joe-sos@isp.net, with all | |
9 | relevant information stored in a new ~/SOS directory. | |
10 | ||
11 | ezmlm sets up joe-sos-subscribe and joe-sos-unsubscribe for automatic | |
12 | processing of subscription and unsubscription requests. Any message to | |
13 | joe-sos-subscribe will work; Joe doesn't have to explain any tricky | |
14 | command formats. ezmlm will send back instructions if a subscriber sends | |
15 | a message to joe-sos-request or joe-sos-help. | |
16 | ||
17 | ezmlm automatically archives new messages. Messages are labelled with | |
18 | sequence numbers; a subscriber can fetch message 123 by sending mail to | |
19 | joe-sos-get.123. The archive format supports fast message retrieval even | |
20 | when there are thousands of messages. | |
21 | ||
22 | ezmlm takes advantage of qmail's VERPs to reliably determine the | |
23 | recipient address and message number for every incoming bounce message. | |
24 | It waits ten days and then sends the subscriber a list of message | |
25 | numbers that bounced. If that warning bounces, ezmlm sends a probe; if | |
26 | the probe bounces, ezmlm automatically removes the subscriber from the | |
27 | mailing list. | |
28 | ||
29 | ezmlm is easy for users to control. Joe can edit ~/SOS/text/* to change | |
30 | any of the administrative messages sent to subscribers. He can remove | |
31 | ~/SOS/public and ~/SOS/archived to disable automatic subscription and | |
32 | archiving. He can put his own address into ~/SOS/editor to set up a | |
33 | moderated mailing list. He can edit ~/SOS/{headeradd,headerremove} to | |
34 | control outgoing headers. ezmlm has several utilities to manually | |
35 | inspect and manage mailing lists. | |
36 | ||
37 | ezmlm uses Delivered-To to stop forwarding loops, Mailing-List to | |
38 | protect other mailing lists against false subscription requests, and | |
39 | real cryptographic cookies to protect normal users against false | |
40 | subscription requests. ezmlm can also be used for a sublist, | |
41 | redistributing messages from another list. | |
42 | ||
43 | ezmlm is reliable, even in the face of system crashes. It writes each | |
44 | new subscription and each new message safely to disk before it reports | |
45 | success to qmail. | |
46 | ||
47 | ezmlm doesn't mind huge mailing lists. Lists don't even have to fit into | |
48 | memory. ezmlm hashes the subscription list into a set of independent | |
49 | files so that it can handle subscription requests quickly. ezmlm uses | |
50 | qmail for blazingly fast parallel SMTP deliveries. |