Create Mailman Mailinglist

Create The List

To create the list, visit the Mailman list creation page and enter the following fields:

• Name of list. It should not contain spaces, use hypens instead.
• Initial list owner address. The email address of the person who will manage the list.
• List password. Can be anything, but consider using the same format as in the password file.
• List creator's password. The "mailman general admin password" from the password file.

Update the password file with the new list password.

Configure the list

After creating the list, you need to update some of the settings by visiting the following pages, and updating the given fields.

General Options:

The List administrator is someone who can do list membership management and who must approve posts of large email messages.

• List administrator email address. Consider having at least two addresses so administrative requests don't pile up due to vacations, etc.
• A terse phrase identifying this list. If the list has non-ddci participants, please note so early in the description.
• An introductory description
• Should any existing Reply-To: header found in the original message be stripped? Yes
• Where are replies to list messages directed? 'This list'
• Send monthly password reminders? No
• Maximum length in kilobytes. We've been using 40KB, you can choose whatever, but please don't get carried away. Posts larger than this are possible, but they will need to be approved by the list administrator.

Privacy Options

• Who can view subscription list? Can be "Anyone" or "list members"

Privacy options/sender filters

• Action to take for postings from non-members for which no explicit action is defined.

May want to set to "accept", so that non members can post without administrator approval.

Archive options:

• Is archive file source for public or private archival? Always use private.
• How often should a new archive volume be started? Use Monthly unless you expect exceptionally high or low traffic.

Content Filtering

• Should Mailman filter the content of list traffic according to the settings below? Yes
• Remove message attachments that have a matching content type. Should be empty
• Remove message attachments that don't have a matching content type. Should be empty
• Should Mailman convert text/html parts to plain text? No.

The Content filtering options are necessary so that people who post html format messages and/or attachments can be archived in a readable manner. If you don't do them, the html part of a message is discarded, and attachments are typically unretrievable.

Install aliases

Mailman sends an administrative request to the owner of the "mailman" list indicating that some stuff needs to be put in the /etc/mail/aliases file on deos.ddci.com, and newaliases(1) then needs to be run. These tasks require root access on deos.ddci.com. The administrator, Kevin Lew mailto:klew@ddci.com x4366, must perform these steps before the list is active. The admin will send you an email message when that task is done so you can test the mailing list.

Send a test message.

Send a test message to the list, preferably in HTML format, containing a small attachment (e.g., https://ddci.zapto.org/favicon.ico). Verify it is sent to you, and that the archive shows both the message and the attachment.

Subscribe people.

Go back to the List admin page for the list. Then to the "Membership management" page and subscribe whomever.

Announce the list

Send a message announcing the list to mailto:deos-maintainers@deos.ddci.com, or whatever as appropriate.