DICE - Mailing Lists and Aliases

Note that the current mail server (mail.inf) is crunchie (but it has been flakey and nutty and so you may see references to those). so any of the commands and paths below related to that machine. And the virtual mail relay (virtualrelay.inf) is beeknow.

IMPORTANT - The @inf address space overlaps the UUN username space, therefore care must be taken when a request is received for a mail alias/address/list such as 'buid@inf'.

• The first suggestion is that you ask the requester to consider an alias outside of the UUN namespace, ie more than 8 characters and/or containing a hyphen, eg buid-info@inf.
• If the alias must lie within the UUN namespace, then IS must be contacted and the alias added to their UUN exclusion list before we can agree to create the alias. If IS cannot exclude that alias, or if it is already in use, then we cannot create that alias. If the requester wants to pursue this further then they will need to contact IS to plead their case to have the name assigned to them.
• Not actually a UUN issue but a related alias policy, we do not currently (and probably never) provide personal aliases eg Neil.Brown@inf to point at neilb@inf.

Now that's out of the way, onto the fun stuff!

Editing aliases on the mailhost

The alias files are in /opt/sendmail on the mailhost.

The aliases file (on which the newaliases command works) is built from several smaller files using the make aliases command from within the sendmail directory. All these files are under RCS control.

• The make aliases does the equivalent of cat aliases-head aliases-local aliases-inf aliases-fullnames aliases-sms aliases-mailman aliases-legacyredirect > aliases

  aliases-head	header for main aliases file
  aliases-local	miscellaneous aliases - postmaster etc.
  aliases-inf	official informatics aliases - hod, hopu etc.
  aliases-fullnames	for full names - NOT IN OPERATION.
  aliases-sms	for exceptions to sms - ideally empty, but just in case.
  aliases-mailman	mailman lists - no other lists allowed
  aliases-legacyredirect	users opting out of inf addresses - again ideally this will be empty

To add an alias:

• cd /opt/sendmail
• co -l aliases-mailman (checkout aliases-mailman file)
• edit the file

  If you have created a mailing list, the lines that you will have to paste will be similar to:

  # ai1reps mailing list
  ## created: 07-Nov-2002 mailman
  ai1reps: "|/var/mailman/mail/wrapper post ai1reps"
  ai1reps-admin: "|/var/mailman/mail/wrapper mailowner ai1reps"
  ai1reps-request: "|/var/mailman/mail/wrapper mailcmd ai1reps"
  ai1reps-owner: ai1reps-admin

  See the section below on creating a mailing list for more information.

• make (make new aliases file and runs newaliases)
• ci -u aliases-mailman file (check in aliases-mailman file)

VERY IMPORTANT

Remember the -u option in the ci command. This will leave a copy of the file and not delete it.

Creating or deleting a mailing list on the mailhost

First make sure you've read the important bit at the top of this page.

All mailing lists are now mailman lists. The list must be created or deleted using mailman commands (in /var/mailman/bin, or ~mailman/bin). Then the list must be added to (or removed from) the sendmail aliases file so that sendmail knows what to do with mail sent to the list.

To add a mailman list

• Lists requested by the ITO or for BAYES or SICSA are handled differently (see later), you'll probably not want to do all the steps below, particularily the first "newlist" command.
• log on to the mailhost and as mailman run the command:

  /var/mailman/bin/newlist mailing_list_name
  

  Note - do not qualify the list name.
• Use the -q option if you don't want to send list creation messages to the list-owner.
• You will be prompted for the name of the list-owner. No list will be set up unless a member of staff takes responsibility for the list maintenance.
• You will be prompted for an initial password.
• Unless you have set up the list using the "-q" option, the list owner will be sent an initial list admin message, containing this password.
• Mailman will print out the entries you must paste into the sendmail aliases file. I usually have a root editor window on the mailhost at the same time, to make this easier. As I use emacs, I also make sure that word wrapping is turned off. Remember to save your changes and run make. See above for details on editting aliases files.
• New: May 2017 Once the list is created (but you can do this before you sort out the mail aliases files), add our template anti-spam to the list with the command:

  /disk/mailraid/scripts/addantispam mailing_list_name
  

  as the mailman user.

To remove a list:

• Remove the entries from the alias file. ie mostly the same as adding an alias above, except you delete the corresponding mailman list entries.
• If you are paranoid (so you can get the list back easily), and want to keep a copy of a list settings and membership, then prior to actually removing it, there is an /opt/mailman/deleted/ directory that you copy stuff into so that it can be got back quickly if necessary. This should be purged every so often. Assuming you are deleting the list called "foo-list" then (as root) do:

  cp -rip /opt/mailman/lists/foo-list /opt/mailman/deleted/lists
  cp -rip /opt/mailman/archives/private/foo-list.mbox /opt/mailman/deleted/private
  

• Finally, to actually remove the list, then as mailman issue the command:

  /var/mailman/bin/rmlist -a foo-list
  

  The -a option deletes the list archives, so don't use it if you want to keep the archives. Generally we would remove the archives as well unless requested. Though remember if the archives were only accessible to list members, then if you've removed the list from mailman, then people will not be able to authenticate to view them!

There's now a couple of basic scripts /disk/mailraid/scripts/delete-list and /disk/mailraid/scripts/remove-mailman-aliases that do the "cp"s and "rmlist", and remove the alias lines. See their code for instructions!

ITO Lists

ITO Lists - student classes, and groups of lecturers and tutors and so on, are owned by ito-listmaster@inf.ed.ac.uk. And should have a standard set of settings, eg privacy settings, HTML pages to remove unsubscribe options (as the membership is driven from the database). There is a long standing action to agree and state these settings, but for now cloning and existing similar list seems sensible.

There is now a wrapper script /disk/mailraid/scripts/newstudentclasslist which you should use instead of the normal /var/mailman/bin/newlist script for ITO lists. This sets up the list settings as I believe they are intended. See the script for details, basically it clones the "students@inf" list, sets the listowner, password, pivacy settings and uses the spamwrapper. You still need to paste the entries into the sendmail aliases file.

We also need to clear out old list postings at the beginning of each new session. Again this needs to be stated and formalised somewhere!

Update Nov 2006: There is now a wiki page detailing the setup of ITO lists: https://wiki.inf.ed.ac.uk/DICE/ServicesUnitITOLists. The newstudentclass script will do the right thing for new student lists, but not for course/class related staff lists. eg inf1a-tutors. It nearly does, but the posting permissions are different. So you'll need to fix them.

Capability Driven List Membership

There is a now a script /opt/mailman/inf_scripts/capability2list which is run along with the other daily mailman scripts that can synchronise a list's membership with the list of UUNs with the specified capability. The script is the documentation!

BAYES or SICSA email lists

To create a BAYES or SICSA email lists, you do that on virtual mail relay (beeknow) by editting /opt/mail/virtusertable (under RCS control). Note that there's is a script to make sicsa mailing lists. As mailman on crunchie run:

 /disk/mailraid/scripts/newbayeslist directors 

 /disk/mailraid/scripts/newsicsalist maa-leader 

note the missing leading "bayes" or "sicsa" prefix . The scripts will actually create a list called bayes-directors (or sicsa-maa-leader) and configure the list to expect to be called directors@bayes.ed.ac.uk (or maa-leader@sicsa.ac.uk)

You then need to paste the output as normal into aliases-mailman, but also add two variations of it into

beeknow:/opt/mail/virtusertable

eg
sicsa-maa-leader@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-admin@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-admin@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-bounces@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-bounces@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-confirm@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-confirm@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-join@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-join@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-leave@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-leave@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-owner@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-owner@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-request@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-request@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-subscribe@sicsa.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-subscribe@inf.ed.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-unsubscribe@sicsa.ac.uk
sicsa-maa-leader-unsubscribe@inf.ed.ac.uk

maa-leader@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-admin@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-admin@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-bounces@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-bounces@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-confirm@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-confirm@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-join@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-join@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-leave@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-leave@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-owner@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-owner@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-request@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-request@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-subscribe@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-subscribe@inf.ed.ac.uk
maa-leader-unsubscribe@sicsa.ac.uk sicsa-maa-leader-unsubscribe@inf.ed.ac.uk similarily for bayes.ed.ac.uk lists.

VENTURES aliases and legacy aliases

To create an INFORMATICS-VENTURES alias for a new member of commercialisation team, you do that on virtual mail relay (beeknow) by editing /opt/mail/virtusertable (under RCS control)

This is also where legacy aliases live, e.g. @dai, @cogsci, @dcs should they ever need modified.

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