15. Migration to Ezmlm from other Mailing List Managers.

This section describes differences and similarities between ezmlm and other mailing list managers. It also details functions of ezmlm-idx that allow you to configure ezmlm to respond to commands utilized by such other mailing list managers so the command syntax will be familiar to such users. Contributions to complete this sections are welcome.

15.1 Basic Concepts.

Ezmlm is different from other mailing list managers in that it is list-centric rather than host-centric. With a list-centric interface, you address the list directly with administrative commands. With ezmlm, the command is embedded in the list address thus becoming part of it (i.e., the ``command address''.) With smartlist, again you address the list, but send all administrative commands to the list-request address. Ezmlm lists can support this if you use the ezmlm-make(1) ``-q'' switch to configure ezmlm-request(1) in DIR/manager.

Other mailing list managers are host-centric, i.e. administrative commands for any list on that particular host are addressed to a central address such as majordomo@host, listserv@host, or listproc@host. Then the user is required to place the command in either the subject header or more commonly in the body text of the message. The listname has to be included with the command. [Note: The above concept is not universally applicable to all host-centric mailing lists. While intended to to used in a host-centric manner, many such mailing list managers also support listname-request@host addressing. See the applicable list manger documentation for details. Coverage of this aspect of other mailing list manager functionality is beyond the scope of this FAQ.] To make the migration to ezmlm easier, support for a host-centric style mailing list manger is available. This is based on the use of ezmlm-request(1) with the ``-f config_file'' switch.

15.2 Setting up ezmlm to respond to host-centric commands.

The ezdomo.tar.gz file included in the ezmlm-idx>=0.31 distribution contains the basic files needed to set up ezmlm to respond to host-centric command syntax. See the following section for the format and utilization of such syntax for the major non-ezmlm mailing list managers available today. This section will set up majordomo@host as the example. The setup for other command addresses, such as listproc or listserv are the same, except the contents of DIR/inlocal and DIR/outlocal need to be changed appropriately.

The ezmlm-idx>=0.31 distribution also contains a script, ezmlm-glmake(1) that will set up the global interface for you. It works in a manner similar to ezmlm-make(1) and will in ezmlm-idx-0.32 be replaced with a special ezmlm-make(1) config file. See the description below for details on what ezmlm-glmake(1) does, or if you prefer to set this up manually.

Setting up the directory structure.

The author's preference is to use the name of the mailing list manager ezmlm is masquerading as as the name of its directory. Thus, a directory should be made in your ``alias'' users home directory (usually /var/qmail/alias/). Easiest is to:

        % su
        # su alias
        # cd ~alias
        # tar zxvf ..../ezdomo.tar.gz

 ezdomo/:
-rw-r--r-- 1 alias  qmail  644 Jun 15 21:04 config
-rw-r--r-- 1 alias  qmail   45 May 26 20:02 headerremove
-rw-r--r-- 1 alias  qmail    9 May 26 20:20 inlocal
-rw-r--r-- 1 alias  qmail   20 May 26 20:21 outhost
-rw-r--r-- 1 alias  qmail    9 May 26 20:21 outlocal

 ezdomo/text:
-rw-r--r-- 1 alias  qmail  619 Jun  1 22:13 bottom
-rw-r--r-- 1 alias  qmail 1811 Jun 15 21:02 help
-rw-r--r-- 1 alias  qmail  306 Jun  7 15:08 top

Setting up the files.

Other than the config_file, which requires some work, the setup of the balance of the files is quite straightforward. ezdomo/inlocal, ezdomo/inhost, ezdomo/outlocal, and ezdomo/outhost need to be adjusted, usually to the name you've chosen for the interface, (e.g. ``majordomo'') and your host name, for *local and *host, respectively.

If you use a character set other than US-ASCII, put it's name, optionally followed by ``:'' and the desired content-transfer-encoding character (``Q'' for quoted-printable and ``B'' for base64) into ezdomo/charset.

If the ``majordomo'' were being set up for a virtual domain, the setup is virtually the same except (1) the directory structure would reside under the user controlling the virtual domain, (2) the ezdomo/inlocal file would have the user's name prepended to ``majordomo'', e.g. ``user-majordomo'' and (3) the *host files would contain the name of the virtual domain.

The ezdomo/config_file contains a list of mailing lists which the ``majordomo'' (in this case) can provide information about in the following syntax:

  list@host:listdir:description

  list@host::description

For the ``which'' command to work, the DIR/, which contains the subscriber database, must be readable by the user under which mail is delivered. This means that ``which'' is usually limited to lists owned by the user or virtual domain under which the ``ezdomo'' interface is set up.

Setting up the .qmail file.

The final step in setting up a fully functional majordomo@host which is serviced by ezmlm is setting up the .qmail file. Here the file which needs to be established in the ``alias'' user's home directory is the file .qmail-majordomo. It must contain the following:

  |/usr/bin/ezmlm/ezmlm-request -f '/var/qmail/alias/ezdomo/config'
  '/var/qmail/alias/ezdomo'

15.3 Commands of other mailinglist managers recognized by ezmlm.

Listproc/Listserv.

When set up as above, substituting ``listproc'' or ``listserv'' for ``majordomo'' as appropriate, ezmlm will recognize and respond to the following commands placed in the body of the e-mail with the syntax below. Note: ezmlm will only respond to one command per message.

syntax: command listname [subscribe@host]

Supported commands

subscribe, sub, unsubscribe, unsub, list, help, review.

Additional supported commands

All ezmlm commands, such as ``thread'', ``index'' and ``get'' as well as the list owner's commands.

This interfaced makes information available via command messages to the appropriate mailing list. Thus, ``list'' and ``review'' will send a subscriber list only to remote administrators and only if specifically allowed by the list owner.

Majordomo.

syntax: command listname [subscriber address]

Supported commands

lists, subscribe, unsubscribe, help, which, who.

Additional supported commands

All ezmlm user and ezmlm owner commands.

This interfaced makes information available via command messages to the appropriate mailing list. Thus, ``who'' will send a subscriber list only to remote administrators and only if specifically allowed by the list owner.

Smart-List.

Unlike ``listproc/listserv'' or ``majordomo'', ``smart-list'' does not provide ``host-centric'' services. Rather, commands are addressed to listname-request@host and the command placed on the ``Subject:'' line:

  To: listname-request@host
  Subject: command [subscriber address]

Supported commands

subscribe, unsubscribe.

Additional Supported Commands

All ezmlm user and ezmlm owner commands.