[Techtalk] Majordomo Replacement?

[Mary]

Since you want to use it with Qmail, I'd have a look at ezmlm -
www.ezmlm.org, which is sort of the canonical Qmail MLM.

Things I haven't discussed here you should check www.ezmlm.org for,
since while I use ezmlm, I'm not exactly an expert.

Note to lurkers considering running mailing lists - I wouldn't recommend
ezmlm to non-qmail users - they're quite tightly coupled.

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003, Kai MacTane wrote:
> Here's a list of my absolute requirements:
> 
> * Must be able to handle multiple domains (see above).
> * Must be able to work with Qmail. It's okay if minor tweaks are
>   necessary to make this happen, but not really major ones.

ezmlm generates the qmail dotfiles itself, and since it uses the dotfile method
it can handle multiple domains in the normal Qmail way.

> * Must allow any reasonable (i.e., printable) character in list
>   administrative passwords (and any other passwords) -- must NOT
>   choke and die if a password looks like "foo#bar"! (Would you
>   believe Majordomo couldn't handle the #? And it didn't fail very
>   gracefully, either.)

Doesn't really use passwords at all, it uses an email interface. The
major annoying thing about it is that it relies on users' Return-Path
address rather than their From address. Depending on your users, this
may be different. Most people who are using webmail or a GUI mail client
won't face a problem with this though.

Important commands are confirmed with a reply (since it is possible to
forge a Return-Path header).

Admin can be done through command line or email.

> * Must allow setting of Reply-To: header. I don't really care what
>   Chip Rosenthal says; my users say they want Reply-To: to go back
>   to the list. And I agree with them.

http://www.ezmlm.org/faq-0.40/FAQ-9.html#ss9.8

> * Must allow prepending of list name (or other text) to outgoing
>   Subject: headers. Duh.

http://www.ezmlm.org/faq-0.40/FAQ-9.html#ss9.2

> * It must be at least possible, if not necessarily easy, to transfer
>   current Majordomo lists over to this MLM. (Note that some of these
>   lists are archived, and have been going for over 5 years; I'd want
>   to transfer the archive files, as well. They're essentially mbox
>   format.)

THis I would need to check on, I've never had to transfer archives.

> These features would be nice, but aren't required:
> 
> * Web interface allowing list owners to configure their lists via
>   a browser, instead of through emailed commands.

There is an add-on for this, I have not used it.

> * It would be really nice if it allowed proper and easy moderation --
>   like, if a user who's moderated sends in a message, it gets held by
>   the MLM, while the moderator(s) gets asked to approve or deny it.
>   Then (assuming it's passed), the unchanged message gets sent to the
>   list, without requiring the moderator to do strange cut-and-pasting.
>   (Majordomo doesn't handle this properly.)

This is done easily. You reply to the "requires moderation" message and
when it receives that reply, a message goes out to the whole list.

> * If it's written in Perl, bash, or PHP (i.e., languages I speak),
>   then I can hack it if necessary. This would make me happy. However,
>   an MLM that's well written, so that I never *need* to hack it,
>   would make me much happier, even if it's impenetrable C++ (which
>   I don't speak).

It's either C or C++ I think.

> * Finally, it would be nice if it's actually *easy* to transfer the
>   preexisting Majordomo lists over -- like it has some kind of tool
>   explicitly for that purpose (which I don't expect), or it can be
>   fairly easily done by a quickie custom shell script.

You subscribe people from the command line with:

ezmlm-sub [directory] [email address]

so scripting this should not be hard.

(It stores all the settings in a particular directory, hence the
[directory] argument).

-Mary