mdw@git.distorted.org.uk Git - ezmlm/blob - BLURB

   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.