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Mailing Lists at the University of Birmingham Changes for List Owners

New articles are added at the start of this file. The dates reflect the dates of the articles.

Default Maximum Message Size - 4 June 1999

Since the transfer to the new mailer there has been an unexpected change. Majordomo has a default maximum size limit for messages on lists of 40000 characters (just under 40kb). This did not work on the previous system. However, the feature now works and the list owner receives an error message if larger messages are sent to the list.
For most lists this will present no problem as lists are generally used for distribution of plain ascii text. It will offer advantages for list owners who wish to discourage the sending of encoded attachments (these are generally unacceptable on large discussion lists). However, a few lists, particularly internal University ones, are used to distribute large documents (eg. word processor, spreadsheet, graphics). In these cases the default limit will be too small.

A higher limit can be set by fetching the config file and adding a maxlength line (or altering an existing one if it is already
present). eg.

maxlength = 1000000

The number is the maximum number of characters. 1000000 would put a limit of just under a megabyte.

The sizes have not been altered globally, as different lists will have different requirements.

New Central Mail Server (mail hub) - 26 May 1999

As announced in the article of 4 May 1999, it is planned to commission the new central mail server on 1 June 1999.
Majordomo will be retained as the list management software, with a later release being implemented (1.94.4). Many of the features which were not implemented on the old mailer will work, allowing list owners greater flexibility, such as control over reply-to field). We are aware that some people have a pressing need for some of these features as soon as possible, so they will be made available as soon as the new mailer is brought into service. However it will not be possible to offer full support for these until a later date. At this stage, digests and archiving have not been implemented, although this will become a possibility in the not too distant future.

The main changes that you will need to be aware of are detailed below. All changes to the configuration files will have been carried out automatically on your behalf. You will only need to know about these changes if you alter your configuration file after the changeover on 1st June 1999.

Configuration File - Main Changes

The following two differences are the most likely ones to effect list owners. If you have used other features which have not been documented as supported in the list owners guide, please check that these are compitable with the new version of Majordomo. A sample configuration file is available in the list owners guide.

• private_who
  This option is now called who_access and can have a value of open or closed.
  eg.
  who_access = open
  
  
• unsubscribe_policy
  This sets whether people can unsubscribe or not. This has been set to open for all existing lists. This allows people to unsubscribe themselves from lists. The value can be set to closed which means that individuals cannot unsubscribe; the list owner must do this; such a value may be of use in a departmental staff mailing list, for example. The other possible value is auto (the default value) and this allows anyone to unsubscribe andy list member. It is recommended that this value is avoided.

Moderated and Restricted Posting Lists

Moderated lists and lists restricting posting to list members or another list used purely for access control purposes are not formally supported at this stage. However, a few lists have been set up to do this and have been operating for some time.
They should continue to operate as normal, and the problem which prevented some list members from posting should now be resolved.
The access control mechanism for both of these categories was never published and relied on facilities in the previous mailer software (PP). The mechanism is now being changed to be consistent with the normal mechanisms in Majordomo.
All existing lists affected will be converted to use the new mechanism. Any owners of lists (new or existing) which require the facilities in future will be able to use the standard majordomo facilities for achieving this control. It is hoped to offer full support for these features later this year.

If experiencing problems with these changes, please report them via the IT Service Desk (Zone GC, Main Library). The internal telephone number is 47171 and the email address is helpdesk@bham.ac.uk.

Last Updated 17 June 1999. Please mail any comments to C.B.Bayliss@bham.ac.uk