Version: $Id: majordomo-faq.html,v 1.29 1994/11/11 18:52:18 barr Exp barr $
Archive-Name: mail/majordomo-faq
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Table of Contents:
1. What is Majordomo and how can I get it?
+ What is Majordomo?
+ Where do I get it?
+ How do I install it?
+ How do I upgrade from an earlier release?
+ Where do I report bugs or get help with Majordomo?
+ Which is better, Majordomo or LISTSERV?
2. Problems setting up Majordomo
+ What are the proper permissions and ownership of all
Majordomo files and directories?
+ I get "Permission denied at ..." when majordomo runs
+ I get "shlock: open(">/some/path/...") when majordomo runs
+ A file is visible via index, but can't 'get' it
+ Majordomo seems to be taking many minutes to process commands
+ I get an error "insecure usage" from the wrapper
+ I get "majordomo: No such file or directory" from the wrapper
+ I get an error "Can't locate majordomo.pl"
+ I told my majordomo.cf where to archive the list, why isn't
it working?
+ I'm accumulating lots of files called /tmp/resend.*.in and
.out,
+ A list is visible via lists, but can't subscribe or 'get'
files
3. Setting up mailing lists and aliases
+ How do I direct bounces to the right address?
+ Semi-automated handling of bounced mail
+ What's this Owner-List and List-Owner stuff? Why both?
+ How should I configure resend for Reply-To headers?
+ How can I hide lists so they can't be viewed by 'lists'?
+ How can I restrict a list such that only subscribers can send
mail to the list?
+ Can I have the list owner or approval person be changeable
without intervention from the Majordomo owner?
+ What about all of these passwords starting in version 1.90?
+ How do I tell majordomo to handle "get"-ing of binary files?
4. Miscellaneous mailer and other problems
+ Address with blanks are being treated separately
+ Why aren't my digests going out?
This FAQ is Copyright 1994 by David Barr and The Pennsylvania State
University. This document may be reproduced, so long as it is kept in
its entirety and in its original format.
Credits:
This FAQ originally written by Vincent D. Skahan. Many thanks to the
members of the majordomo-workers and majordomo-users mailing lists for
many of the questions and answers found in this FAQ. Thanks to
fen@comedia.com (Fen Labalme) for getting an HTML version started.
You can get this FAQ by sending an e-mail message to
majordomo@pop.psu.edu with "get file majordomo-faq" in the body of
the message. You can get an HTML version on the World Wide Web at
http://www.pop.psu.edu/~barr/majordomo-faq.html. If you have any
questions or submissions regarding this FAQ, send them to
barr@pop.psu.edu (David Barr).
_________________________________________________________________
Section 1: What is Majordomo and how can I get it?
WHAT IS MAJORDOMO?
Majordomo is a program which automates the management of Internet
mailing lists. Commands are sent to Majordomo via electronic mail to
handle all aspects of list maintainance. Once a list is set up,
virtually all operations can be performed remotely, requiring no
intervention upon the postmaster of the list site.
majordomo - n: a person who speaks, makes arrangements, or takes
charge for another. From latin "major domus" - "master of the
house".
Majordomo is written in Perl (at least 4.035, preferably 4.036). It is
also known to work under Perl 5, if you edit majordomo and resend and
look for instances of the "@" character inside text strings "@" Change
the "@" to "\@". This only happened with recent versions of Perl 5.
The same fix is also required if you want to run Majordomo under OSF/1
on the DEC AXP systems with Perl 4 or 5. [from Jim Reisert]
Majordomo controls a list of addresses for some mail transport system
(like sendmail or smail) to handle. Majordomo itself performs no mail
delivery (though it has scripts to format and archive messages).
Here's a short list of some of the features of Majordomo.
* supports various types of lists, including moderated ones.
* List options can be set easily through a configuration file,
editable remotely.
* Supports archival and remote retrieval of messages.
* Supports digests.
* Written in Perl, - easily customizable and expandable.
* Modular in design.
* Includes support for FTPMAIL.
WHERE DO I GET IT?
Via anonymous FTP at:
ftp://ftp.greatcircle.com/pub/majordomo/
If you don't have Perl, you can get it from:
ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/perl-4.036.tar.gz
The FTPMAIL package can be found in
ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/ftpmail or any comp.sources.misc
archive (volume 37).
HOW DO I INSTALL IT?
Majordomo comes with a rather extensive README. Read this file
completely. This FAQ is meant to be a supplement to Majordomo's
documentation, not a replacement for it. If you have any questions
that this FAQ doesn't cover, chances are that it is covered in the
README or other documentation in the Majordomo distribution.
HOW DO I UPGRADE FROM AN EARLIER RELEASE?
Be sure to browse the "Changes" and "Changelog" files to get an idea
what has changed. There currently is no canned set of instructions for
upgrading from an earlier release. The most straightforward method is
to simply install the current release in a different directory, (with
the same list/archive/digest directories) and change the mail aliases
for each list to use the new Majordomo scripts as soon as you feel
comfortable with the new setup.
WHERE DO I REPORT BUGS OR GET HELP WITH MAJORDOMO?
If you need help, there is a mailing list
majordomo-workers@greatcircle.com, which is frequented by lots of
users of Majordomo. Please don't send questions to me. Report bugs to
majordomo-workers@greatcircle.com. Be sure always to include which
version of Majordomo you are using. You should also include what
operating system you are using, what version of Perl, and what mailer
(sendmail, smail, etc) and version you are using, especially if you
can't get Majordomo to work at all. But first, you must have
thoroughly read the documentation to Majordomo and this FAQ.
WHICH IS BETTER, MAJORDOMO OR LISTSERV?
For a good comparison of various mailing list managers (MLM's)
there's a good review by Norm Aleks. Send mail to
"majordomo@pop.psu.edu" with the body "get file MLM-comparison" in the
body of the message. This eventually will probably become its own FAQ.
Contact naleks@papaya.UMMED.EDU (Norm Aleks) for more information.
Section 2: Problems setting up Majordomo
WHAT ARE THE PROPER PERMISSIONS AND OWNERSHIP OF ALL MAJORDOMO FILES AND
DIRECTORIES?
By far the biggest problem in setting up Majordomo is getting all the
permissions and ownerships right. In part this is due to the security
model that Majordomo uses, and it's also due to the fact that it's
hard to automate this process. That's due to improve in future
releases.
Majordomo works by using a small C "wrapper" which works by allowing
Majordomo to always run as the "majordom" user and group that you
create. (note that the wrapper may disappear in a future release,
since its function could safely be replaced by features found in Perl
5) Because Majordomo does not run with any "special" priviliges, and
because of the fact that Majordomo does a lot of .lock-style locking
(with shlock.pl), permissions on all files and directories are
critical to the correct operation of Majordomo.
The wrapper
The wrapper is compiled in one of two ways, by uncommenting the
correct section for your type of system. If you are unsure if your
system is POSIX or not, I would suggest you assume that your system is
not. If things don't work right, then try POSIX.
If you are on a non-POSIX system, the wrapper must be both suid and
sgid (mode 6755) to whatever you defined your majordomo user and group
to be. It must not be setuid root!
OR
On a POSIX system the wrapper must be setuid root, and double-check
that W_UID and W_GID are the uid and gid of the majordomo user and
group. Don't set W_UID to be 0!
Then compile the wrapper and install it. Do not install the wrapper on
an NFS filesystem with the "nosuid" option set. This will prevent the
wrapper from working.
Majordomo files
All files that majordomo creates will be mode 660, user "majordomo",
group "majordomo" if it is running correctly. The Log file that
majordomo writes logging information to must have this same permission
and ownership. Make sure any files you create by hand (.config,
subscription lists) have this same permission and ownership. (the can
also be mode 664 if you don't need the contents to be private to
others) The permissions/ownership of the Majordomo programs and
related files themselves aren't as crititcal, but the must all be
readable to the majordomo user/group. All Majordomo programs
(majordomo, resend, etc.) must have the execute bit set.
Majordomo directories
All directories under Majordomo's control ($homedir, $listdir,
$digest_work_dir, $filedir, as defined in your majordomo.cf) must be
mode 770 (or 775). They should be user and group owned by "majordom".
If want to allow a local user to be able to directly modify files or
for example copy files into a list's archive directory, you may make
the directory or file owned by that user. However directories and
files must be group-"majordom" writeable.
I GET "PERMISSION DENIED AT ..." WHEN MAJORDOMO RUNS
I GET "SHLOCK: OPEN(">/SOME/PATH/..." WHEN MAJORDOMO RUNS
A FILE IS VISIBLE VIA INDEX, BUT CAN'T 'GET' IT
MAJORDOMO SEEMS TO BE TAKING MANY MINUTES TO PROCESS COMMANDS
These are all symptoms of a permission or ownership problem. See the
previous question. The directory specified of any "shlock" errors
indicates a problem with that directory. A "get" problem means the
ownership or permission of archive directory for that list is wrong.
I GET AN ERROR "INSECURE USAGE" FROM THE WRAPPER
The argument to ".../wrapper" should be simply "majordomo", not The
full path to majordomo or resend. "wrapper" has where to look compiled
in to it (the "W_BIN" setting in the Makefile) for security reasons,
and will not let you specify another directory.
Your alias should say:
|"/path/to/majordomo/wrapper majordomo"
I GET "MAJORDOMO: NO SUCH FILE OR DIRECTORY" FROM THE WRAPPER
Make sure that the #! statement at the beginning of all the Majordomo
Perl executables contain the correct path to the perl program. (the
default is /usr/local/bin/perl) Make sure also that majordomo and all
the related scripts are in the W_BIN directory as defined in the
Makefile when you compiled the wrapper.
I GET AN ERROR "CAN'T LOCATE MAJORDOMO.PL"
[from Brent Chapman]
Majordomo adds "$homedir" from the majordomo.cf file to the @INC array
before it goes looking for "majordomo.pl". Since it's not finding it,
I'd guess you have one of two problems:
1) $homedir is set improperly (or not set at all; there is no default)
in your majordomo.cf file.
2) majordomo.pl is not in $homedir, or is not readable.
[from John P. Rouillard]
3) Note that the new majordomo.cf file checks to see if the
environment variable $HOME is set first, and uses that for $homedir.
Since the wrapper always sets HOME to the correct directory, you get a
nice default, unless you are running a previously built wrapper, in
which case you may get the wrong directory.
[from Andreas Fenner]
4) I had the same problem when I installed majordomo (1.62). My
Problem was a missing ";" in the majordomo.cf file - just in the line
before setting homedir .... My hint for you: Check your perl-files
carefully.
I TOLD MY MAJORDOMO.CF WHERE TO ARCHIVE THE LIST, WHY ISN'T IT WORKING?
[From John Rouillard]
The archive variables in majordomo.cf aren't used to archive anything.
You have to use a separate archive program, or a sendmail alias to do
the archiving. The info is used to generate a directory where the
archive files are being placed by some other mechanism.
You are telling majordomo to look in the directory:
/usr/local/mail/majordomo/archive/
for files that it should allow to be gotten using the get command.
Majordomo comes with three different archive programs that run under
wrapper, that do various types of archiving. Look in the contrib
directory.
I'M ACCUMULATING LOTS OF FILES CALLED /TMP/RESEND.*.IN AND .OUT WHAT ARE
THESE AND HOW CAN I GET RID OF THEM?
This is a known bug in Majordomo 1.92. There was a typo in resend on
line 347. Change the double-quotes to angle-brackets. (just like the
other calls to unlink())
A LIST IS VISIBLE VIA LISTS, BUT CAN'T SUBSCRIBE OR 'GET' FILES
[From Brent Chapman]
I'll bet your list name has capital letters in it... Majordomo smashes
all list names to all-lower-case before attempting to use the list
name as part of a filename. So, while it's OK to advertise (for
instance) "Majordomo-Users" and have the headers say
"Majordomo-Users", the files and archive directory all need to be
"majordomo-users*".
_________________________________________________________________
Section 3: Setting up mailing lists and aliases
HOW DO I DIRECT BOUNCES TO THE RIGHT ADDRESS?
This was somewhat of a RTFM question. The answer is to use 'resend'
to your advantage. The following is an example of a sendmail alias
that I was using:
sample: :include:/usr/local/mail/lists/sample
Whereas this example (from the 'sample.aliases' file distributed with
Majordomo) fixes the problem.
sample: "|/usr/local/mail/majordomo/wrapper resend -p bulk -M 10000
-l Sample -f Owner-Sample -h GreatCircle.COM -s
sample-outgoing"
sample-outgoing: :include:/usr/local/mail/lists/sample
owner-sample: joe
See the 'resend.README' file for more info on resend's options.
What this does is force outgoing mail to have the out-of-band envelope
FROM be "Owner-Sample@GreatCircle.COM", and thus all bounces will be
redirected to that address. (Users often see this mirrored in the
message body as the "From " or "Return-Path:" header). 'resend' also
inserts a "Sender:" line with the same address to help people identify
where it came from, but that header is not used for the bounce
address.
If you are using sendmail v8.x, you don't have to use 'resend' to do
the same thing. You simply have to define an alias like this:
owner-sample: joe,
Note the trailing comma is necessary to prevent sendmail from
resolving the alias first before putting it in the header. Without the
comma, it will put "joe" in the envelope from instead of
"owner-sample". Either address will work, of course, but the generic
address is preferred should the owner ever change.
SEMI-AUTOMATED HANDLING OF BOUNCED MAIL
[From John Rouillard]
Just create a mailing list called "bounces". I usually set mine up as
an auto list just to make life easier.
All that "bounce" script does is create an email message to majordomo
that says:
approve [passwd] unsubscribe [listname] [address]
approve [passwd] subscribe bounces [address]
The [address] and [listname], are given on the command line to bounce.
The address of the majordomo, and the passwords are retrieved from the
.majordomo file in your home directory.
A sample .majordomo file might look like (shamelessly stolen from the
comments at the top of the bounce script):
this-list passwd1 Majordomo@This.COM
other-list passwd2 Majordomo@Other.GOV
bounces passwd3 Majordomo@This.COM
bounces passwd4 Majordomo@Other.GOV
A command of "bounce this-list user@fubar.com" will mail the following
message to Majordomo@This.COM:
approve passwd1 unsubscribe this-list user@fubar.com
approve passwd3 subscribe bounces user@fubar.com (930401 this-list)
while a command of "bounce other-list user@fubar.com" will mail the
following message to Majordomo@Other.COM:
approve passwd2 unsubscribe other-list user@fubar.com
approve passwd4 subscribe bounces user@fubar.com (930401 this-list)
Note that the date and the list the user was bounced from are included
as a comment in the address used for the "subscribe bounces" command.
WHAT'S THIS OWNER-LIST AND LIST-OWNER STUFF? WHY BOTH?
[From David Barr]
The "standard" is spelled out in RFC 1211 - "Problems with the
Maintenance of Large Mailing Lists".
It's here where the "owner-listname" and "listname-request" concepts
got their start. (well it was before this, but this is where it was
first spelled out)
Personally, I don't use "listname-owner" anywhere. You don't really
have to put both, since the "owner" alias is usually only for bounces,
which you add automatically anyway with resend's "-f" flag, or having
Sendmail v8.x's "owner-listname" alias.
(while I'm on the subject) The "-approval" is a Majordomo-ism, and is
only necessary if you want bounces and approval notices to go to
different mailboxes. (though you'll have to edit some code in
majordomo and request-answer if you want to get rid of the -approval
alias, since it's currently hardwired in)
So, to answer your question, I'd say "no". You don't have to have
both. You should just have "owner-list".
HOW SHOULD I CONFIGURE RESEND FOR REPLY-TO HEADERS?
Whether you should have a "Reply-To:" or not depends on the charter
of your list and the nature of its users. If the list is a discussion
list and you generally want replies to go back to the list, you can
include one. Some people don't like being told what to do, and prefer
to be able to choose whether to send a private reply or a reply to the
list just by using the right function on their mail agent. Take note
that if you do use a "Reply-To:", then some mail agents make it much
harder for a person on the list to send a private reply.
If you are using resend, use the '-r ' flag to set the Reply-To field
to the list, or use the 'reply_to' config keyword for 1.9x or greater.
HOW CAN I HIDE LISTS SO THEY CAN'T BE VIEWED BY 'LISTS'?
That is what advertise and noadvertise are for. The two keywords take
regular expressions that are matched against the from address of the
sender. A list display follows the rules:
1. If the from address is on the list, it is shown.
2. If the from address matches a regexp in noadvertise (e.g. /.*/)
the list is not shown.
3. If the advertise list is empty, the list is shown unless 2
applies.
4. If the advertise list is non-empty, the from address must match an
address in advertise. Otherwise the list is not shown. Rule 2
applies, so you could allow all hosts in umb.edu except hosts in
cs.umb.edu.
HOW CAN I RESTRICT A LIST SUCH THAT ONLY SUBSCRIBERS CAN SEND MAIL TO THE
LIST?
For pre-1.9x versions of majordomo, see the -I option to resend. For
1.9x this is the restrict_post keyword in the config file. Just set it
to the filename that holds the list of subscribers. Unfortunately this
means you probably will need help from the Majordomo maintainer in
setting it if you don't have access to the host machine. This is due
to be improved in a future release of Majordomo.
However, there is a problem with either of these methods. Majordomo
works by filtering the messages coming in through the "listname"
alias, doing its dirty work, then passing the resulting message out to
another alias you define like "listname-outgoing". If you trust people
to not send mail directly to the "listname-outgoing" alias, then
you'll be fine. If however you're not trusting, there are several
steps to make sure people don't bypass the restrictions of the list.
There are several methods. First you need to change your
"listname-outgoing" alias such that it is not obvious. Next, you need
to make it such that people can't find out what your -outgoing alias
is.
You can use the "@filename" directive in resend to move the
command-line options of resend into a file readable only by the
majordomo user/group. This will make it such that you can't find out
the -outgoing address by connecting to your mailer and doing an EXPN
or VRFY, or even locally by looking at the aliases file or NIS map.
Another more direct approach is to simply disable EXPN or VRFY
altogether. See the documentation for your mailer on how to do this.
Finally it should be noted that it is impossible with any method to
prevent people from forging mail as someone on the list, and sending
to the list that way.
CAN I HAVE THE LIST OWNER OR APPROVAL PERSON BE CHANGEABLE WITHOUT
INTERVENTION FROM THE MAJORDOMO OWNER?
Sure! Just make owner-listname and/or listname-approval be another
majordomo list. (probably hidden, for simplicity's sake)
WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THESE PASSWORDS STARTING IN VERSION 1.90?
Think of three separate passwords:
1. A master password that can be used by both resend and majordomo
contained in [listname].passwd. To be used by the master list
manager when using writeconfig commands etc. This allows someone
who handles a number of mailing lists all using the same password.
2. A password for the manager of this one list. The admin_passwd can
be used by subsidiary majordomo list maintainers.
3. A password for those concerned with the list content
(approve_passwd)
This way the administration and moderation functions can be split. The
original reason for maintaining [listname].passwd was to allow a new
config file to be put in if the config file was trashed and the
admin_password was obliterated, and may still be useful to allow a
single password to be used for admin functions by the majordomo admin
or some other "superadmin".
Note that the admin passwd in the config file is not a file name, but
the password itself. This is the only way that the list-maintainer
could change the password since they wouldn't have access to the file.
HOW DO I TELL MAJORDOMO TO HANDLE "GET"-ING OF BINARY FILES?
Majordomo is not designed to be a general-purpose file-by-mail
system. If you want to do anything more than trivial "get"-ing of text
files (archives, etc) than you should get and install ftpmail.
Majordomo has hooks to allow transparent access to files via ftpmail
(see majordomo.cf).
_________________________________________________________________
Section 4: Miscellaneous mailer problems
ADDRESS WITH BLANKS ARE BEING TREATED SEPARATELY
> Does anyone else have the problem:
>
> If a subscriber to the list is
> John Doe
>
> Majordomo or sendmail treats this as 3 addresses:
> John
> Doe
>
>
> Of course the first two always fail.
[From Alan Millar]
Majordomo does not treat these as three addresses. Apparently your
mailer does.
Remember that all Majordomo does is add and remove addresses from a
list. Majordomo does not interpret the contents of the list for
message distribution; the system mailer (such as sendmail) does.
I'm using SMail3 instead of sendmail, and it has an alternative (read
"stupid") view of how mixed angle-bracketed and non-angle-bracketed
addresses should be interpreted. I found that putting a comma at the
end of each line was effective to fix the problem, and I got to keep
my comments. So I patched Majordomo to add the comment at the end of
each address it writes to the list file.
You can also add the $listname.strip option so that none of the
addresses are angle-bracketed. (the "strip" config option for 1.90)
WHY AREN'T MY DIGESTS GOING OUT?
>I'm not sure how to set up the digest feature of majordomo 1.92 to send
>digests out. Currently, it is digesting incoming mail, but that's all it's
>doing.
[from John Rouillard]
echo mkdigest | mail majordomo@...
This will force a digest to be created. Or you can set the max size in
the digest list config file down low, and force automatic generation.
There are some patches for 1.92 that will allow other ways of
specifying automatic digest sending. The patch is in the contrib
directory.
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