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_________________________________________________________________
GNU Mailman - List Member Manual
Terri Oda
terri(at)zone12.com
Release 2.1
December 14, 2009
Front Matter
Abstract:
This document describes the list member interface for GNU Mailman 2.1.
It contains instructions for subscribing, unsubscribing, viewing the
archives, editing user options, getting password reminders, and other
subscriber-level tasks. It also answers some common questions of
interest to Mailman list members.
Contents
*
+ 1 Introduction
o 1.1 Acknowledgements
o 1.2 What is a mailing list?
o 1.3 GNU Mailman
+ 2 Translating from our examples to real lists
+ 3 Mailman's interfaces
o 3.1 The web interface
o 3.2 The email interface
+ 4 I need to talk to a human!
+ 5 Subscribing and unsubscribing
o 5.1 How do I join a list? (subscribe)
o 5.2 How do I leave a list? (unsubscribe)
+ 6 Passwords
o 6.1 How do I get my password?
o 6.2 How do I change my password?
o 6.3 How do I turn password reminders on or off?
(reminders option)
+ 7 Changing mail delivery
o 7.1 How do I turn mail delivery on or off? (delivery
option)
o 7.2 How can I avoid getting duplicate messages?
(duplicates option)
o 7.3 How do I change my subscription address?
o 7.4 How do I stop or start getting copies of my own
posts? (myposts option)
o 7.5 How can I get Mailman to tell me when my post has
been received by the list? (ack option)
o 7.6 I don't seem to be getting mail from the lists. What
should I do?
+ 8 Digests
o 8.1 How can I start or stop getting the list posts
grouped into one big email? (digest option)
o 8.2 What are MIME and Plain Text Digests? How do I
change which one I get? (digest option)
+ 9 Mailing list topics
o 9.1 How do I make sure that my post has the right topic?
o 9.2 How do I subscribe to all or only some topics on a
list?
o 9.3 How do I get or avoid getting messages with no topic
set?
+ 10 Setting other options
o 10.1 Change Globally? Set Globally? What does that mean?
o 10.2 How do I change my name as Mailman knows it?
o 10.3 How do I set my preferred language?
o 10.4 How do I avoid having my name appear on the
subscribers list? (the hide option)
+ 11 Other common questions
o 11.1 How do I view the list archives?
o 11.2 What does Mailman do to help protect me from
unsolicited bulk email (spam)?
+ 1 Email commands quick reference
+ 2 Member options quick reference
1 Introduction
This document is intended to help the members of a Mailman 2.1 mailing
list learn to use the features available to them. It covers the use of
the web and email interfaces for subscribing and unsubscribing,
changing member options, getting password reminders and other
subscriber-level tasks. It also answers some common questions of
interest to Mailman list members.
Information for list and site administrators is provided in other
documents.
This document need not be read in order. If you are simply looking for
an answer to a specific question, jump to the appropriate place and
references to other sections will be provided if necessary or
potentially helpful.
Note: For the purposes of this document, we assume that the reader is
familiar with common terms related to email (eg: Subject line, body of
the message) and web sites (eg: drop-down box, button) or can look
them up. We also assume that the reader can already use his or her
email program and web browser well enough that instructions such as
"send email to this address" or "visit this web page" or "fill in the
form provided" are clear. If you are not familiar with these actions,
you may want to consult other documentation to learn how to do these
things with your particular setup.
1.1 Acknowledgements
Sections of this document have been borrowed from the List
Administrator Manual found in Mailman CVS, which was written by Barry
A. Warsaw, and from the in-line help for Mailman 2.1.
The rest of this manual has been written by Terri Oda. Terri has been
maintaining mailing lists since the year she attained voting age in
Canada, although the two are not related. She currently oversees the
mailing lists at Linuxchix.org, as well as several smaller servers. In
the world outside of list administration, Terri is doing work with an
artificial life spam detector, and is actually more of a programmer
than technical writer.
Proofreading thanks go to Margaret McCarthy and Jason Walton.
1.2 What is a mailing list?
A mailing list is simply a list of addresses to which the same
information is being sent. If you were a magazine publisher, you would
have a list of the mailing addresses of all the subscribers to the
magazine. In the case of an electronic mailing list, we use a list of
email addresses from people interested in hearing about or discussing
a given topic.
Two common types of email mailing lists are announcement lists and
discussion lists.
Announcement lists are are used so that one person or group can send
announcements to a group of people, much like a magazine publisher's
mailing list is used to send out magazines. For example, a band may
use a mailing list to let their fan base know about their upcoming
concerts.
A discussion list is used to allow a group of people to discuss topics
amongst themselves, with everyone able to send mail to the list and
have it distributed to everyone in the group. This discussion may also
be moderated, so only selected posts are sent on to the group as a
whole, or only certain people are allowed to send to the group. For
example, a group of model plane enthusiasts might use a mailing list
to share tips about model construction and flying.
Some common terms:
* A "post" typically denotes a message sent to a mailing list.
(Think of posting a message on a bulletin board.)
* People who are part of an electronic mailing list are usually
called the list's "members" or "subscribers."
* "List administrators" are the people in charge of maintaining that
one list. Lists may have one or more administrators.
* A list may also have people in charge of reading posts and
deciding if they should be sent on to all subscribers. These
people are called list moderators.
* Often more than one electronic mailing list will be run using the
same piece of software. The person who maintains the software
which runs the lists is called the "site administrator." Often the
site administrator also administrates individual lists.
1.3 GNU Mailman
GNU Mailman is software that lets you manage electronic mailing lists.
It supports a wide range of mailing list types, such as general
discussion lists and announce-only lists. Mailman has extensive
features which make it good for list subscribers, such as easy
subscription and unsubscription, privacy options, and the ability to
temporarily stop getting posts from the list. The list member features
are covered in this document.
Mailman also has many features which make it attractive to list and
site administrators. These features are covered in the list and site
administrator manuals.
2 Translating from our examples to real lists
Often, it's easier to simply give an example than explain exactly how
to find the address for your specific list. As such, we'll frequently
give examples for a fictional list called LISTNAME@DOMAIN whose list
information page can be found at
http://WEBSERVER/mailman/listinfo/LISTNAME.
Neither of these are real addresses, but they show the form of a
typical list address. The capital letters used for the list-specific
parts of each address should make it easier to see what should be
changed for each list. Although specific list configurations may be
different, you will probably be able to just replace the words given
in capital letters with the appropriate values for a real list:
LISTNAME
The name of your list.
DOMAIN
The name of the mail server which handles that list.
WEBSERVER
The name of the web server which handles the list web
interface. This may be the same as DOMAIN, and often refers to
the same machine, but does not have to be identical.
As a real-life example, if you are interested in the mailman-users
list, you'd make the following substitutions: LISTNAME=mailman-users,
DOMAIN=python.org, WEBSERVER=mail.python.org. As such, for the
mailman-users@python.org mailing list, the list information page can
be found at the URL
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users. (These, unlike
most of the examples given in this document, are real addresses.)
Most lists will have this information stored in the List-*: headers.
Many mail programs will hide these by default, so you may have to
choose to view full headers before you can see these informational
headers.
3 Mailman's interfaces
Mailman has two different interfaces for the list subscriber: the web
interface and the email interface. Most discussion list subscribers
use the email interface, since this includes the email address you use
to send mail to all the subscribers of that list.
The interface you use for changing options is largely a matter of
preference, since most (but not all) of the options which can be
changed from the web interface can also be changed by email. Usually
it is easier to use the web interface for changing options, since the
web interface provides instructions as you go, but there are times
when people may prefer the email interface, so both are provided.
3.1 The web interface
The web interface of Mailman is its selling point for many
administrators, since it makes it much easier for subscribers and
administrators to see which options are available, and what these
options do.
Every mailing list is also accessible by a number of web pages. Note
that the exact URLs are configurable by the site administrator, so
they may be different than what's described below. We'll describe the
most common configuration, but check with your site administrator or
hosting service for details.
List information (listinfo) page
+ Usually found at http://WEBSERVER/mailman/listinfo/LISTNAME
(for example,
http://lists.example.com/mailman/listinfo/mylist)
+ The listinfo page is the starting point for the subscriber
interface. As one would assume from the name it's given, it
contains information about the LISTNAME list. Usually all the
other subscriber pages can be accessed from this point, so
you really only need to know this one address.
Member options page
+ Usually found at
http://WEBSERVER/mailman/options/LISTNAME/EMAIL (For example,
http://lists.example.com/mailman/options/mylist/kathy@here.co
m)
+ This page can also be accessed by going to the listinfo page
and entering your email address into the box beside the
button marked "Unsubscribe or Edit Options" (this is near the
bottom of the page).
+ The member options page allows you to log in/out and change
your list settings, as well as unsubscribe or get a copy of
your password mailed to you.
+ To log in to your member options page: If you are not already
logged in, there will be a box near the top for you to enter
your password. (If you do not know your password, see
Section 6.1 for more information on getting your password.)
Enter your password in the box and press the button.
+ Once you are logged in, you will be able to view and change
all your list settings.
List Archives
+ Usually found at http://WEBSERVER/pipermail/LISTNAME if the
list is publicly archived, and
http://WEBSERVER/mailman/private/LISTNAME if the list is
privately archives. (For example,
http://lists.example.com/pipermail/mylist or
http://lists.example.com/mailman/private/mylist)
+ The list archive pages have copies of the posts sent to the
mailing list, usually grouped by month. In each monthly
group, the posts are usually indexed by author, date, thread,
and subject.
+ Note: Pipermail is the name of the default archiver that
comes with Mailman. Other archive programs are available.
+ If the archive is private, you will need to supply your
subscribed email address and your password to log in. (See
Section 6.1 for more information on getting your password.)
3.2 The email interface
Every mailing list has a set of email addresses to which messages can
be sent. There's always one address for posting messages to the list,
one address to which bounces are sent, and addresses for processing
email commands. For a fictional mailing list called
mylist@example.com, you'd find these addresses:
* mylist@example.com - this is the email address people should use
for new postings to the list.
* mylist-join@example.com - by sending a message to this address, a
new member can request subscription to the list. Both the Subject:
header and body of such a message are ignored. Note that
mylist-subscribe@example.com is an alias for the -join address.
* mylist-leave@example.com - by sending a message to this address, a
member can request unsubscription from the list. As with the -join
address, the Subject: header and body of the message is ignored.
Note that mylist-unsubscribe@example.com is an alias for the
-leave address.
* mylist-owner@example.com - This address reaches the list owner and
list moderators directly. This is the address you use if you need
to contact the person or people in charge.
* mylist-request@example.com - This address reaches a mail robot
which processes email commands that can be used to set member
subscription options, as well as process other commands. A list of
members' email commands is provided in Appendix A.
* mylist-bounces@example.com - This address receives bounces from
members whose addresses have become either temporarily or
permanently inactive. The -bounces address is also a mail robot
that processes bounces and automatically disables or removes
members as configured in the bounce processing settings. Any
bounce messages that are either unrecognized, or do not seem to
contain member addresses, are forwarded to the list
administrators.
* mylist-confirm@example.com - This address is another email robot,
which processes confirmation messages for subscription and
unsubscription requests.
There's also an -admin address which also reaches the list
administrators, but this address only exists for compatibility with
older versions of Mailman.
For changing options, we use the LISTNAME-request address (for
example, mylist-request@example.com).
Commands can appear in the subject line or the body of the message.
Each command should be on a separate line. If your mail program
automatically appends a signature to your messages, you may want to
put the word "end" (without the quotes) on a separate line after your
other commands. The end command tells Mailman not to process the email
after that point.
The most important command is probably the "help" command, since it
makes Mailman return a message full of useful information about the
email commands and directions to the web interface.
Quick references to the subscriber commands have been provided in
Appendices A and B. (These have been slightly adapted from the output
of the help command.)
4 I need to talk to a human!
If you have any trouble with any of these commands, you can always
reach the person or people in charge of a list by using the list
administrator email address. The list administrators can help you
figure out how to do something, subscribe/unsubscribe you, or change
your settings if you are unable to change them yourself for some
reason. Please remember that many mailing list administrators are
volunteers who are donating their spare time to run the list, and they
may be very busy people.
This list administrator email address is in the form
LISTNAME-owner@DOMAIN, where LISTNAME is the name of the list (eg:
mailman-users) and DOMAIN is the name of the server (eg: python.org).
This email address, along with the email addresses of specific
administrators, is given on the bottom of the list information pages.
See Section 3.1 for more information on finding the list information
page for your list
5 Subscribing and unsubscribing
Since subscribing (joining) and unsubscribing (leaving) lists are
often the only things a list member needs to know, these can both be
done without requiring you to know a password.
5.1 How do I join a list? (subscribe)
There are two common ways you can subscribe to a Mailman mailing list.
Using the web interface:
1. Go to the list information page for the list you want to join.
(This will probably be something like
http://WEBSERVER/mailman/listinfo/LISTNAME)
2. Look for the section marked "Subscribing to LISTNAME" and fill in
the boxes. You can fill in the following:
+ You must enter your email address.
+ You may choose to supply your real name.
+ You may choose a password. If you do not choose one, Mailman
will generate one for you.
Warning: Do NOT use a valuable password, since this password
may be mailed to you in plain text.
+ If the list supports more than one language, you may be able
to choose your preferred language. Note: This setting does
not affect posts to the list, only pre-prepared Mailman texts
such as your member options page.
3. Press the subscribe button. A new page should appear telling you
that your request has been sent.
Using the email interface:
1. Open a mail program which sends mail from the address you want to
subscribe.
2. Send a mail to the list subscription address, which will be in the
form LISTNAME-join@DOMAIN. The subject and body of the message
will be ignored, so it doesn't matter what you put there.
After following one of these sets of instructions (you don't need to
do both!), there are a few possible outcomes depending upon the
settings for that list.
* You may receive an email message asking for confirmation that you
really want to be subscribed to the list. This is to prevent
anyone from subscribing you to lists without your permission.
Follow the instructions given in the message to confirm your wish
to be subscribed.
* A moderator may also need to confirm your subscription if you are
subscribing to a limited list.
* Or you may have to wait for a moderator and follow the
instructions in the confirmation mail.
Once this is done, you will likely receive another message welcoming
you to the list. This message contains some useful information
including your list password and some quick links for changing your
options, so you may want to save it for later reference.
Note: Subscribing can be done in other ways as well. See Appendix A
for more advanced email subscribing commands.
5.2 How do I leave a list? (unsubscribe)
Don't want to be on a list any more? If you're just going on vacation
or are too busy to read mails and want to temporarily turn them off,
you may want to stop mail delivery rather than unsubscribing. This
means you keep your password and other settings so you can, for
example, still have access to private list archives. If this is what
you'd prefer, see Section 7.1 for instructions on disabling mail
delivery temporarily.
If you actually want to leave the list, there are two common ways you
can unsubscribe from a Mailman mailing list.
Using the web interface:
1. Go to the list information page for the list you want to leave.
(This will probably be something like
http://WEBSERVER/mailman/listinfo/LISTNAME)
2. Look for the section marked "LISTNAME subscribers" (usually found
near the bottom of the page).
3. There should be a button marked "Unsubscribe or Edit Options."
Enter your email address in the box beside this button and press
the button.
4. You should be brought to a new page which has an "Unsubscribe"
button. Press it to unsubscribe and follow the instructions given.
Using the email interface:
1. Open a mail program which sends mail from the address you want to
unsubscribe.
2. Send a mail to the list unsubscribe address, which will be of the
form LISTNAME-leave@DOMAIN. The subject and body of this message
will be ignored, so it doesn't matter what you put there.
After following one of these sets of instructions (you don't need to
do both!), you will be sent a confirmation mail and must follow the
instructions given in that mail to complete the unsubscription. This
is to stop people from unsubscribing you without your permission. In
addition, a moderator may need to approve your unsubscription.
If you do not receive this confirmation mail with instructions, make
sure that you typed your email address correctly (if you were using
the web interface to unsubscribe) and that the address you tried to
unsubscribe is, indeed, actually subscribed to that list. For security
reasons, Mailman generates the same member options page regardless of
whether the address entered is subscribed or not. This means that
people cannot use this part of the web interface to find out if
someone is subscribed to the list, but it also means that it's hard to
tell if you just made a typo.
Once your unsubscription has been processed, you will will probably
receive another message confirming your unsubscription from the list,
and at that point you should stop receiving messages.
If you wish to skip the confirmation process (for example, you might
be unsubscribing an address which no longer works), it is possible to
bypass it by using your password instead and either logging in to your
options page using it (See Section 3.1), or sending it with your email
commands to LISTNAME-request (See Appendix A for advanced email
unsubscription commands). See Section 6.1 for more information on
getting your password.
6 Passwords
Your password was either set by you or generated by Mailman when you
subscribed. You probably got a copy of it in a welcome message sent
when you joined the list, and you may also receive a reminder of it
every month. It is used to verify your identity to Mailman so that
only the holder of the password (you!) and the administrators can view
and change your settings.
Warning: Do NOT use a valuable password for Mailman, since it can be
sent in plain text to you.
6.1 How do I get my password?
If you've forgotten your password and haven't saved the welcome
message or any reminder messages, you can always get a reminder
through the web interface:
1. Go to the list information page for the list from which you wish
to get your password (This will probably be something like
http://WEBSERVER/mailman/listinfo/LISTNAME)
2. Look for the section marked "LISTNAME subscribers" (this section
is usually found near the bottom of the page).
3. There should be a button marked "Unsubscribe or Edit Options."
Enter your email address in the box beside this button and press
the button.
4. You should be brought to a new page which has an "Password
Reminder" section. Press the "Remind" button to have your password
emailed to you.
If you do not receive the password reminder email after doing this,
make sure that you typed your email address correctly and that the
address you used is, indeed, actually subscribed to that list. For
security reasons, Mailman generates the same member options page
regardless of whether the address entered is subscribed or not. This
means that people cannot use this part of the web interface to find
out if someone is subscribed to the list, but it also means that it's
hard to tell if you just made a typo.
You can also get a reminder using the email interface,
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command password
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
If you are not sending mail from your subscribed address, you can
also specify this address by sending the command password address=
$<$ ADDRESS $>$ .
6.2 How do I change my password?
Warning: Do NOT use a valuable password, since this password may be
mailed to you in plain text.
From the web interface:
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for
instructions on how to do this.)
2. Look for the password changing boxes on the right-hand side of the
page and enter your new password in the appropriate boxes, then
press the button marked "Change My Password."
This can also be changed for multiple lists at the same time if you
are subscribed to more than one list on the same domain. See
Section 10.1 for information about changing settings globally.
From the email interface:
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command password
$<$ OLDPASSWORD $>$ $<$ NEWPASSWORD $>$ .
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
If you are not sending mail from your membership address, you can
also specify this address with address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$ after $<$
NEWPASSWORD $>$ .
For example, if kathy@here.com wanted to change her mylist
password from zirc to miko, but she was sending mail from her work
address kathy@work.com, she could send a message to
mylist-request@example.com with the subject set to
password zirc miko address=kathy@here.com.
6.3 How do I turn password reminders on or off? (reminders option)
If you don't wish to the reminder email including your password every
month, you can disable it from the member options page. (You can
always get the password mailed out when you actually want it. See
Section 6.1 for instructions.)
Using the web interface:
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for
instructions on how to do this.)
2. Look for the section marked "Get password reminder email for this
list?" and change the value accordingly.
This can also be changed for multiple lists at the same time if you
are subscribed to more than one list on the same domain. See
Section 10.1 for information about changing settings globally.
Using the email interface:
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command
set reminders on or set reminders off.
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
2. Set it to "on" to receive reminders, and "off" to stop receiving
reminders.
7 Changing mail delivery
7.1 How do I turn mail delivery on or off? (delivery option)
You may wish to temporarily stop getting messages from the list
without having to unsubscribe. If you disable mail delivery, you will
no longer receive messages, but will still be a subscriber and will
retain your password and other settings.
This can be handy in a many different cases. For example, you could be
going on vacation or need a break from the list because you're too
busy to read any extra mail. Many mailing lists also allow only
subscribers to post to the list, so if you commonly send mail from
more than one address (eg, one address for at home and another for
when you're travelling), you may want to have more than one subscribed
account, but have only one of them actually receive mail. You can also
use this as a way to read private archives even on a list which may be
too busy for you to have sent directly to your mailbox. All you need
to do is subscribe, disable mail delivery, and use your password and
email to log in to the archives.
To disable/enable mail delivery using the web interface:
1. Log in to your options page. (See Section 3.1 for instructions.)
2. Go down to the section marked "Mail delivery" and select
"Disabled" to stop receiving mail, and "Enabled" to start
receiving mail.
This can also be changed for multiple lists at the same time if you
are subscribed to more than one list on the same domain. See
Section 10.1 for information about changing settings globally.
To disable/enable mail delivery using the email interface:
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command
set delivery off or set delivery on.
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
2. Set it to "off" to stop receiving posts, and "on" to start
receiving them again.
7.2 How can I avoid getting duplicate messages? (duplicates option)
Mailman can't completely stop you from getting duplicate messages, but
it can help. One common reason people get multiple copies of a mail is
that the sender has used a "group reply" function to send mail to both
the list and some number of individuals. If you want to avoid getting
these messages, Mailman can be set to check and see if you are in the
To: or CC: lines of the message. If your address appears there, then
Mailman can be told not to deliver another copy to you.
To turn this on or off using the web interface:
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the section marked "Avoid
duplicate copies of messages?" and change the value accordingly.
This can also be changed for multiple lists at the same time if you
are subscribed to more than one list on the same domain. See
Section 10.1 for information about changing settings globally.
To turn this on or off using the email interface:
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command
set duplicates on or set duplicates off.
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
2. Set it to "on" to receive list copies of messages already sent to
you, set it to "off" to avoid receiving these duplicates.
7.3 How do I change my subscription address?
To change your subscription address,
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. In the section marked "Changing your LISTNAME membership
information," enter your new address.
3. If you wish to change your address for all subscriptions using the
old address, select the "Change globally" box. If you have
subscriptions under another address or for lists on a different
domain, these will have to be done separately. See Section 10.1
for more information about changing settings globally.
There is no special way to do this from the email interface, but you
can subscribe and unsubscribe for more or less the same effect. (See
Sections 5.1 and 5.2 for more information on subscribing and
unsubscribing.)
7.4 How do I stop or start getting copies of my own posts? (myposts option)
By default in Mailman, you get a copy of every post you send to the
list. Some people like this since it lets them know when the post has
gone through and means they have a copy of their own words with the
rest of a discussion, but others don't want to bother downloading
copies of their own posts.
Note: This option has no effect if you are receiving digests.
You may also want to see Section 7.5, which discusses acknowledgement
emails for posts sent to the list.
To set this using the web interface:
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. Look for the section marked "Receive your own posts to the list?"
Set it to "Yes" to receive copies of your own posts, and "No" to
avoid receiving them.
To set this using the email interface:
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command
set myposts on or set myposts off.
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
2. Set it to "on" to receive copies of your own posts, and "off" to
avoid receiving them.
7.5 How can I get Mailman to tell me when my post has been received by the
list? (ack option)
On most lists, you will simply receive a copy of your mail when it has
gone through the list software, but if this is disabled (See
Section 7.4), your list mail delivery is disabled (See Section 7.1),
you are not subscribed to that topic (See Section 9.2) or you simply
want an extra acknowledgement from the system, this option may be
useful to you.
Note: If you are not subscribed to the list, this option cannot be
used. You must either check the archives yourself (if the list has
public archives), ask someone who is subscribed to the list, or
subscribe to use this option.
To set this using the web interface:
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. Look for the section marked "Receive acknowledgement mail when you
send mail to the list?" Set it to "Yes" to receive a mail letting
you know your post has been received, and "No" to avoid receiving
such an acknowledgement.
To set this using the email interface:
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command set ack on
or set ack off.
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
2. Set it to "on" if you wish to receive mail letting you know your
post has been received, and "off" to avoid receiving such an
acknowledgement.
7.6 I don't seem to be getting mail from the lists. What should I do?
There are a few common reasons for this:
* No one has sent any mail to the list(s) you're on for a little
while.
To check if this is the case, try visiting the archives of the
list (assuming that the list has archives). If the list has no
archives, you may have to ask another subscriber. (See Section 3.1
for help in finding the list archives.)
Note: Generally, it is considered impolite to send test messages
to the entire list. If you feel a need to test that the list is
working and for some reason you cannot simply compose a regular
message to the list, it is less disruptive to send a help message
to the list request address (LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN) to see if
that works, or to contact the list administrator
(LISTNAME-owner@DOMAIN) to ask if the list is working.
* You were bouncing mail and have had mail delivery (temporarily)
disabled by the list software.
If your mail provider "bounces" too many messages (that is, it
tells Mailman that the message could not be delivered) Mailman
eventually stops trying to send you mail. This feature allows
Mailman to gracefully handle addresses which no longer exist (for
example, the subscriber has found a new internet service provider
and forgot to unsubscribe the old address), as well as addresses
which are temporarily out-of-service (for example, the subscriber
has used up all of the allotted space for his or her email
account, or the subscriber's mail provider is experiencing
difficulties).
Even if you are unaware of any difficulties with your mail
provider, it is a good idea to check this. Some popular webmail
providers and internet servers are not as reliable as one might
assume, nor is the internet as a whole. You may want to also send
yourself a test message from another account or ask a friend to
send you a test message to make sure your subscribed address is
working.
To check if this may be the reason you are not receiving messages,
log in to the your options page (See Section 3.1 for more details
on how to do this) and look at your options. There should be one
marked "Mail Delivery" - if it is set to "Disabled," set it to
"Enabled" to start receiving mail again. (For more instructions on
disabling or enabling mail delivery, see Section 7.1.)
Note: Even if you have not been disabled at the time you check,
you could be bouncing messages and not have reached the threshold
for your subscription to be disabled. You may need to check again.
* There is a delay or break in the networks between you and the list
server.
No matter what many of us would like, the internet is not 100%
reliable, nor is it always fast. Sometimes, messages simply take a
long time to get to you. Try to be patient, especially if the
server is far (in terms of networks, not geography, although often
one implies the other) from your internet service provider.
To check if this might be causing your problem, you can try
pinging the list server or tracing the route between you and it.
(Instructions on how to do this varies from platform to platform,
so you may want to use a search engine to find those appropriate
for you.)
* The Mailman installation on the list server is not functioning or
not functioning properly.
To test if this is a case, try visiting the list's web interface
and try sending a message to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the
command "help" (without the quotes) in the Subject:. If neither of
these works after a reasonable length of time, this may be the
problem. You may wish to contact either the list or site
administrator(s).
8 Digests
8.1 How can I start or stop getting the list posts grouped into one big email?
(digest option)
Groups of posts are called "digests" in Mailman. Rather than get
messages one at a time, you can get messages grouped together. On a
moderately busy list, this typically means you get one email per day,
although it may be more or less frequent depending upon the list.
You may also want to look at Section 8.2 which discusses MIME and
plain text digests.
To turn digest mode on or off using the web interface,
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. Look for the section marked "Set Digest Mode."
Set it to "On" to receive messages bundled together in digests.
Set it to "Off" to receive posts separately.
To turn digest mode on or off using the email interface,
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command
set digest plain or set digest mime or set digest off.
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
2. Set it to "off" if you wish to receive individual posts
separately, and to "plain" or "mime" to receive posts grouped into
one large mail. See Section 8.2 for more information on plain
versus MIME digests.
8.2 What are MIME and Plain Text Digests? How do I change which one I get?
(digest option)
MIME is short for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. It is used to
send things by email which are not necessarily simple plain text. (For
example, MIME would be used if you were sending a picture of your dog
to a friend.)
A MIME digest has each message as an attachment inside the message,
along with a summary table of contents.
A plain text digest is a simpler form of digest, which should be
readable even in mail readers which don't support MIME. The messages
are simply put one after the other into one large text message.
Most modern mail programs do support MIME, so you only need to choose
plain text digests if you are having trouble reading the MIME ones.
Note: This option has no effect if you are not receiving mail bunched
as digests. (See Section 8.1 for more information on receiving mail as
digests.)
To set your digest type using the web interface:
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. Look for the section marked "Get MIME or Plain Text Digests?."
Set it to "MIME" to receive digests in MIME format, or "Plain
text" to receive digests in plain text format.
This can also be changed for multiple lists at the same time if you
are subscribed to more than one list on the same domain. See
Section 10.1 for information about changing settings globally.
To set your digest type using the email interface,
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command
set digest plain or set digest mime.
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
2. Set it to "plain" to get posts bundled into a plain text digest,
or "mime" to get posts bundled together into a MIME digest.
9 Mailing list topics
Some lists are set up so that different topics are handled by Mailman.
For example, the courses list on Linuxchix.org is a discussion list
for courses being run by linuxchix members, and often there are
several courses being run at the same time. (eg: Networking for
beginners, C programming, LaTeX document mark up.) Each of the courses
being run is a separate topic on the list so that people can choose
only to receive the course they want to take.
These topics must be configured by the list administrator, but it is
the responsibility of each poster to make sure that their post is put
with the correct topic. Usually, this means adding a tag of some type
to the subject line (eg: [Networking] What type of cables do I need?)
or making sure the Keywords: line has the right information. (By
default, you can put a Keywords: section in the beginning of the body
of your message, but this can be configured by your list
administrator.) Note that these tags are case-insensitive.
9.1 How do I make sure that my post has the right topic?
When a list administrator defines a topic, he or she sets three
things:
* a topic name
* a regular expression (regexp)
* a description
You can view this information by logging in to your member options
page. (See Section 3.1 for more details on how to do this.) and
clicking on the "details" link for any topic that interests you.
To post on a given topic, you need to make sure that the Keywords: or
Subject: headers in a message match the regular expression for that
topic. Regular expressions can actually be fairly complex, so you may
want to just ask the list administrator if you don't know how to make
heads or tails of the expression given.
Most Mailman topic expressions will be fairly simple regular
expressions, so in this document we will simply give you some common
examples. Regular expressions are a bit too complex to teach in a few
lines here, so if you really want to understand how the regular
expressions work, you should find a tutorial or reference elsewhere.
(For example, DevShed has a decent tutorial at
http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/Administration/RegExp/)
Here are some examples of possible regular expressions and matching
lines:
Regular expression Matching lines
zuff Keywords: zuff
zuff Keywords: ZUFF
zuff Keywords: Zuff
zuff Keywords: amaryllis, zuff, applesauce
zuff Subject: [zuff] Do you have the right stuff for zuff?
zuff Subject: Do you have the right stuff for zuff?
zuff Subject: What is zuff?
\[zuff\] Keywords: [zuff]
\[zuff\] Subject: [zuff] Do you have the right stuff?
\[zuff\] Subject: Online zuff tutorials (was Re: [zuff] What is zuff?)
A few notes:
* The matching is case-insensitive, so if zuff matches, so will
ZUFF, zuFF, and any other variations in capitalization.
* Some characters have special meaning in a regular expression, so
to match those characters specifically, they must be "escaped"
with a backslash (\). As you can see in the above example, [ and ]
are such characters. (Others include ".", "?", and "*"). The
backslash is also used for other things (I wasn't kidding about
regular expressions being complex: consult other documentation for
details about other uses of the backslash character), but this is
the most likely use in a topic expression.
9.2 How do I subscribe to all or only some topics on a list?
If topics have been set up by your mailing list administrator, you can
choose to subscribe to only part of a list by selecting the topics you
want to receive.
If you wish to get all messages sent to the list, make sure you are
not subscribed to any topics.
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. Look for the section marked "Which topic categories would you like
to subscribe to?"
If any topics are defined, you can select those you wish. If you
do not select any topics of interest, you will receive all posts
sent to the list.
You probably also want to look at Section 9.3 which discusses changing
your settings for messages where no topic is set.
9.3 How do I get or avoid getting messages with no topic set?
If you wish to get all messages sent to the list, make sure you are
not subscribed to any specific topic. (See Section 9.2.)
If you are only subscribed to some topics, you can either choose to
either receive or not receive messages with no topic set, much the way
you can choose to subscribe only to certain topics.
To change this setting,
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. Look for the section marked "Do you want to receive message that
do not match any topic filter?"
If you wish to receive messages with no topic set, select "Yes."
If you do not wish to receive such messages, choose "No."
This setting has no effect if you are not subscribed to any topics.
10 Setting other options
10.1 Change Globally? Set Globally? What does that mean?
For some of the options given in your member options page, there is a
tick-box which says "Change Globally" or "Set Globally." This means
that if you change this option, you can also have the change made for
all your other list subscriptions with the same address to lists on
the same domain. This can be handy if, for example, you want to make
sure all your passwords are the same, or you are going on vacation and
want to turn off mail delivery from all the lists.
10.2 How do I change my name as Mailman knows it?
To change your subscription name,
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more
details on how to do this.)
2. In the section marked "Changing your LISTNAME membership
information," enter your new name in the appropriate box.
This can also be changed for multiple lists at the same time if you
are subscribed to more than one list on the same domain. See
Section 10.1 for information about changing settings globally.
Note: You do not need to have a subscription name set.
10.3 How do I set my preferred language?
Mailman is available with many different languages. (For a complete
listing see http://mailman.sourceforge.net/i18n.html.) This means
that, if your list has other languages enabled, you may be able to
have the web interface, etc. in a language of your choice.
Note: This does NOT necessarily mean that all the posts sent to the
list will be in the language you selected. Only the pre-prepared texts
presented by Mailman will be affected by this setting. Posts are in
whatever language the poster uses.
Your preferred language is set when you subscribe (see Section5.1),
and can be changed later if the list supports more than one language.
To change your preferred language in Mailman,
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for
instructions on how to do this.)
2. Go to the section marked "What language do you prefer?" and choose
the appropriate language from the drop-down list. If there is no
drop-down list of languages, the list you are on probably only
supports one language.
If your list does not support the language you would prefer to use,
you may contact the list administrator (LISTNAME-owner@DOMAIN) to see
if it can be added, but remember that this may mean some work that the
list and/or site administrator(s) do not have time or the ability to
do.
If your language of choice is not available because no translation
exists for Mailman, please consider volunteering your time as a
translator. For more information you may want to consult the
mailman-i18n mailing list at
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-i18n. (i18n is a
common short-hand for "internationalization" because the word starts
with an i, ends with an n, and has 18 letters in between. If you
mumble a bit, i18n even sounds a bit like "internationalization.")
10.4 How do I avoid having my name appear on the subscribers list? (the hide
option)
If you do not want to have your email address show up on the
subscriber list for any reason, you can opt to have it concealed.
Common reasons for doing this include avoiding unsolicited bulk email
(spam). By default, the subscribers list is obscured to hinder spam
harvesters, but if you feel this is insufficient it's easy enough to
remove address from the subscriber list given in the information pages
or by email request. (Note that this does not conceal your address
from the list administrators.) You may wish to see Section 11.2 for
more information on what Mailman can do to help avoid spam.
To change this setting using the web interface:
1. Log in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for
instructions on how to do this.)
2. Go to the section marked "Conceal yourself from subscriber list?"
and choose "Yes" to hide your name from the list, or "No" to allow
your name to appear on the list.
To change this setting using the email interface:
1. Send a mail to LISTNAME-request@DOMAIN with the command
set hide on or set hide off.
Commands can appear in either the body or the subject of the
message. (See Section 3.2 for more information about sending mail
commands.)
2. Set it to "on" to conceal your email address from the membership
list, or "off" to stop concealing your address.
11 Other common questions
11.1 How do I view the list archives?
If the list has archives, they can be viewed by going to a web page
address. This address usually linked from the list information page
and can be found in the List-Archive: of every list message unless
your list administrator has disabled these headers. (Many mail
programs hide the List-Archive: mail header, so you may have to tell
your mail program to allow you to view full headers before you will be
able to see it.)
Public archives usually have addresses of the form
http://WEBSERVER/pipermail/LISTNAME/ and private archives usually have
addresses of the form http://WEBSERVER/mailman/private/LISTNAME.
See Section 3.1 for more information on finding the addresses of a
list.
11.2 What does Mailman do to help protect me from unsolicited bulk email
(spam)?
A technical list's archives may include answers to a range of
different questions. Often, the people who have posted these answers
would be happy to help someone who doesn't quite understand the
answer, and don't mind giving their address out for that purpose. But
although it would be wonderful if everyone could contact each other
easily, we also want to make sure that the list and list archives are
not abused by people who send spam.
To make a range of options available to list administrators, Mailman
allows a variety of configurations to help protect email addresses.
Many of these settings are optional to the list administrator, so your
particular list may be set up in many ways. List administrators must
walk a fine line between protecting subscribers and making it
difficult for people to get in touch.
* Subscriber lists
+ The list administrator can choose to have the subscriber list
public, viewable only to list members, or viewable only to
list administrators.
+ The subscriber list is shown with the addresses obscured to
make it difficult for spam harvesters to collect your
address.
+ You can choose to have your address hidden from the
subscriber list. (See Section 10.4 for more information.)
+ Note: The entire subscriber list is always available to the
list administrators.
* List archives
+ The list administrator can choose for the archives to be
public, viewable only to members (private), or completely
unavailable.
+ The HTML archives which are created by Pipermail (the
archiving program which comes default with Mailman) contain
only obscured addresses. Other archiving programs are
available and can do different levels of obfuscation to make
addresses less readable.
+ If you wish to be more sure, you can set the mail header
X-no-archive: and Mailman will not archive your posts.
Warning: This does not stop other members from quoting your
posts, possibly even including your email address.
* Limited posting to the lists
+ The list administrator can choose who can post to the list.
Most lists are either moderated (a moderator or administrator
reviews each posting), set so only subscribers may post to
the list, or allow anyone to post to the list.
+ By allowing only subscribers to post to a list, Mailman often
blocks all spam and some viruses from being sent through the
list. As such, this is a fairly common setting used by list
administrators.
* Anonymous lists
+ Lists can also be made fully anonymous: all identifying
information about the sender is stripped from the header
before the message is sent on.
+ This is not typically used for anti-spam measures (it has
other uses), but it could be used in that way if desired.
Of course, many address-obscuring methods can be circumvented by
determined people, so be aware that the protections used may not be
enough.
1 Email commands quick reference
* confirm $<$ CONFIRMATION-STRING $>$
+ Confirm an action. The confirmation-string is required and
should be supplied within a mailback confirmation notice.
* end
+ Stop processing commands. Use this if your mail program
automatically adds a signature file.
* help
+ Receive a copy of the help message.
* info
+ Get information about this mailing list.
* lists
+ See a list of the public mailing lists on this GNU Mailman
server.
* password [ $<$ OLDPASSWORD $>$ $<$ NEWPASSWORD $>$ ] [address= $<$
ADDRESS $>$ ]
+ Retrieve or change your password. With no arguments, this
returns your current password. With arguments $<$ OLDPASSWORD
$>$ and $<$ NEWPASSWORD $>$ you can change your password.
* set ...
+ Set or view your membership options.
Use `set help' (without the quotes) to get a more detailed
list of the options you can change. This list is also given
in Appendix B.
Use `set show' (without the quotes) to view your current
option settings.
* subscribe [ $<$ PASSWORD $>$ ] [digest|nodigest] [address= $<$
ADDRESS $>$ ]
+ Subscribe to this mailing list. Your password must be given
to unsubscribe or change your options, but if you omit the
password, one will be generated for you. You may be
periodically reminded of your password.
The next argument may be either: `nodigest' or `digest' (no
quotes!). If you wish to subscribe an address other than the
address you sent this request from, you may specify `address=
$<$ ADDRESS $>$ ' (no brackets around the email address, and
no quotes!)
* unsubscribe [ $<$ PASSWORD $>$ ] [address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$ ]
+ Unsubscribe from the mailing list. If given, your password
must match your current password. If omitted, a confirmation
email will be sent to the unsubscribing address. If you wish
to unsubscribe an address other than the address you sent
this request from, you may specify `address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$
' (no brackets around the email address, and no quotes!)
* who [ $<$ PASSWORD $>$ ] [address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$ ]
+ See everyone who is on this mailing list. The roster is
limited to list members only, and you must supply your
membership password to retrieve it. If you're posting from an
address other than your membership address, specify your
membership address with `address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$ ' (no
brackets around the email address, and no quotes!)
2 Member options quick reference
* set help
+ Show this detailed help.
* set show [address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$ ]
+ View your current option settings. If you're posting from an
address other than your membership address, specify your
membership address with `address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$ ' (no
brackets around the email address, and no quotes!).
* set authenticate $<$ PASSWORD $>$ [address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$ ]
+ To set any of your options, you must include this command
first, along with your membership password. If you're posting
from an address other than your membership address, specify
your membership address with `address= $<$ ADDRESS $>$ ' (no
brackets around the email address, and no quotes!).
* set ack on
set ack off
+ When the `ack' option is turned on, you will receive an
acknowledgement message whenever you post a message to the
list.
* set digest plain
set digest mime
set digest off
+ When the `digest' option is turned off, you will receive
postings immediately when they are posted. Use `set digest
plain' if instead you want to receive postings bundled into a
plain text digest (i.e. RFC 1153 digest). Use `set digest
mime' if instead you want to receive postings bundled
together into a MIME digest.
* set delivery on
set delivery off
+ Turn delivery on or off. This does not unsubscribe you, but
instead tells Mailman not to deliver messages to you for now.
This is useful if you're going on vacation. Be sure to use
`set delivery on' when you return from vacation!
* set myposts on
set myposts off
+ Use `set myposts off' to avoid receiving copies of messages
you post to the list. This has no effect if you're receiving
digests.
* set hide on
set hide off
+ Use `set hide on' to conceal your email address when people
request the membership list.
* set duplicates on
set duplicates off
+ Use `set duplicates off' if you want Mailman not to send you
messages if your address is explicitly mentioned in the To:
or Cc: fields of the message. This can reduce the number of
duplicate postings you will receive.
* set reminders on
set reminders off
+ Use `set reminders off' if you want to disable the monthly
password reminder for this mailing list.
About this document ...
GNU Mailman - List Member Manual, December 14, 2009, Release 2.1
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LaTeX2HTML is Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, Nikos Drakos,
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