Creating a Mailing List

Welcome Messages

DList comes with an example welcome message. It is stored in a file called join.tpl in a template format.

You can edit this template to the look that you require, and you can copy it to each list's directory (off the main DList directory) so that individual lists can have their own welcome message.

The template can use the following template variables, which will be replaced by DList with the appropriate information. A template variable is parenthesized with double percent signs, e.g. %%variable%% so that DList can recognize it as a variable.

%%list-name%%	BigList	The name of the list.
%%list%%	biglist@domain.com	The address that list members send messages to post on the list.
%%list-request%%	biglist-request@domain.com	The address that people send list request messages to, e.g. in order to subscribe.
%%h_user%%	bob	The username of the 'person' who has joined the list.

Adding users to a list

Usually, users would add themselves to a list by sending a message to the list request address, e.g. listname-request@domain with the word subscribe in the message body.

DList will then add them to the users.lst file for that list. Users.lst for each list is stored in that list's directory (named after the list), off the DList directory (probably \dmail\dlist\listname\users.lst or /usr/local/dmail/dlist/listname/users.lst )

To add a number of users you have two options:

1. Add yourself as a moderator for the list and send the listname-request address a message with multiple subscribe lines in the body.

   So, as a moderator, you send the following email:

   To: listname-request@domain
   From: your_moderator_address
   
   subscribe bob@domain1.com
   subscribe judy@domain1.com
   subscribe george@domain99.com

   to join up the email addresses,
   bob@domain1.com
   judy@domain1.com
   george@domain99.com

2. Directly edit the users.lst text file for the list and add the email addresses, one per line.

   So, to add the same three users, you might edit the users.lst file to look like this:

   u:tam@1.2.3.4 f:Tam Willacy p:0 t:0
   bob@domain1.com
   judy@domain1.com
   george@domain99.com

   where the first line is an existing user on the list.

   Don't worry about the format of lines for existing users. The next time that DList has to write anything to the users.lst file it will add the email addresses that you have pasted/typed in correctly.

Moderated lists

This is still being written :-)

There are two ways of posting into a moderated list, depending on whether the access_post setting is set to Password or Moderator:

1. Password: DList accepts the message from the user and sends it to the moderator, who, if they want to approve it, then submits it to the list with the first line of message body being
   approve Password
   e.g.
   approve xxxx

   For this to work, the access_post setting for the list in lists.dat must be set to 'Password' and the list password setting must match the password given in the approve line, e.g.
   access_post Password
   password xxxx

2. Moderator: The return address of the incoming message matches that of the moderator setting and the access_post setting is set to Moderator in the lists.dat file, e.g.
   access_post Moderator
   moderator moderator@domain
   where moderator@domain is the address that must match.

Notes:

• There must always be a moderator for a list set to password post access because password is a more secure moderated list.

Archives and Files

This is still being written :-)