Frequently Asked Questions -------------------------- Contents: --------- 1) Why does ListProcessor strip names given to 'subscribe'? 2) Why does ListProcessor put 'X-Comment:' header lines and not the standard 'Comments:'? 3) Why does ListProcessor use the 'From ' address instead of 'From:'? 4) Why does ListProcessor put the list's address in the 'Sender:' header line? 5) Is ListProcessor fully RFC-822 compliant? 6) When receiving a news feed, the body of the message contains all the header lines, and the distributed message has an empty 'Subject:' field. 7) The return mails generated by listproc.c and list.c contain two or more Errors-To: fields. 8) What are the relevant files the manager and owners should be periodically checking? 9) OK, now I installed the software, what do I do next? 10) What does this software do? 11) I am the owner of the list and my approvals get rejected saying that I am not. 12) How do I force replies to go to the original author and not the list? 13) Although my list has multiple owners, only the primary owner receives subscription approval requests, is forwarded messages for approval, and is copied according to his preferences. 14) Some users don't get postings, but I can't say how often. 15) I always get semget() error messages when I start; it complains about an invalid argument. 16) I get "create_connection(): Service unavailable" error messages every time I start. 17) I get 'WARNING: serverd not started with root privileges' every time I start. **** 1) Why does ListProcessor strip names given to 'subscribe'? The listings for 'recipients' and 'statistics' requests are compiled by running shell scripts. The system strips names for security reasons (we do not want backquote characters to be passed to the scripts), and to avoid syntax errors (characters like <, > and | may cause problems); the system preserves '-', '@' and '.'. The system also converts the wild characters * and ? to #, and / to % for security reasons again. 2) Why does ListProcessor put 'X-Comment:' header lines and not the standard 'Comments:'? ListProcessor prefers to use proprietary header lines because in version 6.0 configurable headers will be supported. This means that the system will be able to carry over header lines from the original sender's message, and these may include 'Comments:' 3) Why does ListProcessor use the 'From ' address instead of 'From:'? Primarily for security reasons, i.e. to reduce the likelyhood of forged email. It also makes the algorithm easier, it enables peer lists to work, and does not have to parse multi-line 'From:' lines to look for the address. The system provides the aliases files for dealing with 'From ' addresses that cause problems. 4) Why does ListProcessor put the list's address in the 'Sender:' header line? So that error messages sent to this address are properly archived; these messages are then sent to the owner and are internally scanned for recognizable error conditions; automatic is then taken (subscribers are suspended or removed from the system files). RFC-822 requires that this address is the actual account where the mail originated from; the author does not agree with this, since this would imply the 'server' account (i.e. the manager of the system), and the owner would not see these error messages in this case. 5) Is ListProcessor fully RFC-822 compliant? No. It does not accept addresses in the 'From ' line that contain backquotes and wild characters, for security reasons. It also does not support multi-line header lines, and uses non-standard header lines. 6) When receiving a news feed, the body of the message contains all the header lines, and the distributed message has an empty 'Subject:' field. You have not set up things properly and the list does not receive the article in email format; instead the gateway or news-feed program sends the article in a mail message, which is a different case. 7) The return mails generated by listproc.c and list.c contain two or more Errors-To: fields. Comment out the following line from your sendmail.cf (or whatever have you): HErrors-To: Or turn them off completely by compiling with -DNO_ERRORS_TO. 8) What are the relevant files the manager and owners should be periodically checking? a) I check /usr/server/.report.* and /usr/server/lists/*/.report.list on a daily basis. b) The various mbox files (/usr/server/mbox, /usr/server/lists/*/mbox) should be cleaned periodically. c) The /usr/server/mqueue directory should be periodically checked to see if there are any files sitting in there waiting to be delivered. 9) OK, now I installed the software, what do I do next? Read the README file in this directory. 10) What does this software do? OVERVIEW This is a system that implements various mailing lists with one list server. It is automated, and obliterates the need for user intervention and maintenance of multiple aliases of the form "list, list-owner, list-request", etc. There is support provided for public and private hierarchical archives, moderated and non-moderated lists, peer lists, peer servers, private lists, address aliasing, news connec- tions and gateways, mail queueing, digests, list ownership, owner preferences, crash recovery, batch processing, confi- gurable headers, regular expressions, archive searching, and live user connections via TCP/IP. 11) I am the owner of the list and my approvals get rejected saying that I am not. The system's manager has not updated the owners file; he needs to put your address (from the "From " line) in that file. 12) How do I force replies to go to the original author and not the list? Use the -P flag to your list's definition in the config file. Then depending on the user's mailer, he will be able to "re"ply to the author, or "Re"ply to the list. 13) Although my list has multiple owners, only the primary owner receives subscription approval requests, is forwarded messages for approval, and is copied according to his preferences. That's the intended behavior to avoid miscommunication between the owners (multiple subscription approvals, simultaneous rejection and approval of messages in moderated lists, etc). You may define a mail alias containing all of the owners' addresses and make this alias the primary owner to have all owners copied. 14) Some users don't get postings, but I can't say how often. Most likely there are problems with your sendmail; check the mqueue/ directory for files; if there are any, start queued; files are placed in that directory when the system cannot connect to your sendmail or sendmail aborts. The report files should be your guide. 15) I always get semget() error messages when I start; it complains about an invalid argument. You are using the -i flag to serverd in the config file to go live, but semaphores are not installed on your system, or the maximum system-wide number of semaphores has been reached. Either install semaphores, remove unwanted semaphores with icprm (use ipcs to get a listing), or remove the -i flag. 16) I get "create_connection(): Service unavailable" error messages every time I start. The actual messages are: create_connection(): Service unavailable main(): Listener process cannot create connection sighandle(): Child experienced socket error and are caused by not having configured the new service correctly in /etc/services, or the master services file if in an NIS environment, and have specified the -i flag to serverd in the config file. Either remove the flag, or see doc/server.nr: SYSTEM SETUP for setting up the new service. 17) I get 'WARNING: serverd not started with root privileges' every time I start. You are going live, using the privileged port, and serverd is not setuid root; rerun setup. If you do not have the root password, recompile with -DILP_PORT=x where x is > 1024 (a non-privileged port). If using a non-privileged port, just ignore the message.