I'm having some trouble explaining in a succinct manner how aliases (not
MTA aliases) work. I don't suppose the concept is terribly complicated,
but if I'm having trouble explaining it then you can be sure that users are
going to be bewildered.
The basic premise is that you can add an alias from one address to another;
these two addresses are then treated as equivalent by (almost) all parts of
the Majordomo system.
Since addresses have spaces, we can only put one address on the command
line. Because the security checks work out easier, you send the command
from the email address that is already subscribed to add an alias to it.
Perhaps some examples are in order:
XYX:sina:~/mj/2.0> mj_shell alias test-list user@example.com
**** user@example.com not successfully aliased to tibbs@sina.hpc.uh.edu.
**** tibbs@sina.hpc.uh.edu is not a member of test-list
XYX:sina:~/mj/2.0> mj_shell subscribe=nowelcome test-list
The following address was added to test-list:
tibbs@sina.hpc.uh.edu
XYX:sina:~/mj/2.0> mj_shell alias test-list user@example.com
user@example.com successfully aliased to tibbs@sina.hpc.uh.edu.
XYX:sina:~/mj/2.0> mj_shell show test-list tibbs@blahblah.hpc.uh.edu
Address: tibbs@blahblah.hpc.uh.edu
Address is valid.
Address transforms to:
tibbs@hpc.uh.edu
Address(es) aliased to this address:
user@example.com
Address is subscribed to test-list as:
tibbs@sina.hpc.uh.edu
Subscribed at Sun Oct 12 07:43:02 1997 GMT.
Receiving each message.
Subscriber flags:
ackall
noeliminatecc
showall
selfcopy
Data last changed at Sun Oct 12 07:43:03 1997 GMT.
XYX:sina:~/mj/2.0> mj_shell unsubscribe test-list user@example.com
The following address was removed from test-list:
tibbs@sina.hpc.uh.edu
So, how would you describe this to a user?
Notes: aliases are a per-list concept. This really simplifies things
because aliases go away when you unsubscribe, and there are very delicate
restrictions on when you can alias and when you can't. Chains of aliases
are absolutely not allowed, and you cannot alias one subscriber to another.
You cannot add an alias to an address which is not subscribed, nor can you
alias away from an address that is subscribed (else you couldn't
unsubscribe without first removing the alias).
I have tried to come up with a way to make aliases global, but I just can't
find a way to do it that even approximates the clean solution I use now.
At this point I don't plan on worrying about it any longer.
- J<
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