AutoShare QuickStart 1.0

Contents

• I. What AutoShare Does
• II. Step By Step: Configuring AutoShare
• III. Step By Step: Auto-Reply Accounts
• IV. Step By Step: Vacation Notices
• V. Step By Step: Running a List Server
• VI. The AutoShare List Server from the outside looking in
• VII. For More Information

I. What AutoShare Does

AutoShare is an application written by Mikael Hansen that works as an extension to MailShare 1.0, the freeware edition of Glenn Anderson's Mac-based POP/SMTP server. AutoShare can work as both an auto-reply utility and as a mailing list server. It can work with multiple accounts on a single MailShare server, and can serve several auto-replies for a given account (including Binhex enclosures, if desired) by basing its file selection on text in an incoming message's Subject line.

While MailShare 1.0 supports mailing lists, it doesn't currently offer an interface for outside users to tie into that functionality. AutoShare enables them to add and remove their addresses, as well as hide their subscription from others and toggle a mailing list digest option on and off.

AutoShare must be run on a machine that's already running MailShare. If you aren't running (or can't run) your own POP/SMTP server with MailShare, you can't use AutoShare. If you have access to a non-Mac POP/SMTP server, you might consider using either a server native to that machine or a Mac list server client like Michele Fuortes' Macjordomo (freeware) or StarNine's ListSTAR/POP (available commercially).

II. Step By Step: Configuring AutoShare

A. First Steps

• Be sure your Map Control Panel is configured properly. This is where AutoShare gets its information about your time zone for use in e-mail headers.
• Make sure MailShare is fully set up and running. (For more information about MailShare, see Carl Steadman's MailShare documentation.)

B. Create AutoShare Folders

First, create an AutoShare folder for the AutoShare application and put AutoShare inside. Then create a folder (preferably inside your hard disk's root folder) which AutoShare will use to store its files. A sample version of this folder, called "Auto", comes with the AutoShare distribution.

Inside the "Auto" folder (or whatever you choose to call it), you'll need to create Filed Mail, Documents, List Server, and Filters folders.

C. AutoShare Preferences

Now launch AutoShare and configure its preferences, found in the Preferences menu.

1. Folder Preferences

a. Filed Mail folder

This is the folder to which you'll save all your incoming mail.

b. Incoming Mail folder

This is not an AutoShare-created folder. Instead, it's MailShare's "Incoming Mail" folder. Most likely, this folder will be found in your System Folder, inside the Mail Folder, and will be called "Incoming Mail".

c. Document folder

This is the folder in which you'll store all of your auto-response messages. Within this folder, you'll create subfolders based on the names of all your auto-reply accounts.

d. Listserv folder

This is the folder that will store all your list files (containing the name and address of every list member for every list).

e. Archive folder

Archives of your mailing list can be created automatically by AutoShare. Within this folder you can create subfolders named after lists you are running on your server. Once archiving has been enabled, an archive file will be created and updated each time a new message appears on that list.

f. Filter folder

Filters can be used to prevent certain files from being automatically returned to certain people, sites, etc. This folder is where AutoShare's filter files live.

2. Miscellaneous Preferences

a. Address of the Administrator

This is the e-mail address of the AutoShare administrator. At a user-specified time (set in the Preferences:Times menu, described below), this address will receive the MailShare log.

b. Address of the Bounce Account

This is the address that will receive bounced mail. For example, the postmaster account might receive this mail. This address must be on your own MailShare server, or AutoShare won't run correctly.

c. Log

Logs are automatically mailed to the AutoShare administrator at a user-specified time. The log setting can either be Off (no logging will be done), Always (only important messages will be logged), Brief (a single line will appear in the log for each transaction), or Tech (every transaction will have detailed information). If you can't decide which you want, pick "Brief". It's a good place to start.

d. Format

Format will determine what your list archives (not the digest, which is always plain ASCII) are saved as. If you're not planning on running a mailing list, you can ignore this. Otherwise, choose either text (plain ASCII text) or HTML (the HyperText Mark-up Language, the standard on the World Wide Web).

e. Bounce

This setting determines whether the sender of your message is reset to direct bounced mail to one specific account. If Bounce is OFF, nothing will be altered. If Bounce is ON, all auto-responses and admin log mailings will be set so that if they're bounced back, they'll point to the Bounce address rather than the originator of the mailing. If Bounce is EMPTY, no mail will bounce back to your server.

f. Commands

This setting tells AutoShare's list server whether to scan for list server commands in the subject line of an incoming message or in the message's body. Since most list servers scan the message body rather than the subject line, and since a subject can contain only one command whereas a message body can contain many commands, you should probably choose Body as your option.

3. Times Preferences

a. Logs

Logs (see above) can be sent out to the AutoShare administrator after a certain span of time, which you determine in the Preferences:Times dialog. You can choose how often to send out the log, from every day to every week, and also at what local time the log is mailed. By checking the "Now (besides scheduled)" box, you'll cause AutoShare to immediately send the log to the Administrator address specified in the Miscellaneous preferences (see previous section).

b. Digests

Digests are compilations of messages sent to a mailing list. The default format for most mailing lists, including the ones administered by AutoShare, is that each individual message sent to the list will automatically be reflected to every other member of that list. Some people prefer to cut down on the volume of individual messages they receive, and prefer to receive an omnibus of messages sent to them periodically in the form of a list digest.

AutoShare's digests are sent out after a certain span of time, which you determine in the Preferences:Times dialog. (To get to the Digests section, click on the pop-up button in the dialog and select Digests.) You can choose how often to sent out a digest, from every day to every week, and also at what local time the digest is mailed.

By checking the "Now (besides scheduled)" box, you'll cause AutoShare to immediately create a digest and send it out to those subscribed to the digest option of your mailing lists.

4. Analysis

This option creates a file titled "AutoShare Analysis" in the same folder as your AutoShare application. It includes configuration information about AutoShare, and is useful in troubleshooting AutoShare problems from a distance.

III. Step By Step: Auto-Reply Accounts

That's all you need to do in MailShare to set up the account.

Now you need to set up your auto-reply files.

A. Setting Up

This file needs to be a plain text file. There is one token you may place in that text file - it's there in case you want to quote the previous message at some point in your auto-reply. To do that, place

/=original

You can also create other text files in this folder. Every text file you create will be sent back to all the messages that come in with the file's name in the Subject: line. For example, if you create a file named INFO, then any message that comes in with the word "info" in it (AutoShare is case-insensitive) will receive that file back.

You can create as many of these as you want. Any message with a subject that doesn't match any of the filenames will receive Default instead.

B. File Enclosures

You can also add a binhexed file enclosure to any or all of your auto-return documents. Simply create the binhex (.hqx) file using a utility like Aladdin Systems' shareware DropStuff with Expander Enhancer or the free utility BinHex, and then name it with the same name as the text file you'll be sending back, with .hqx appended on the end. Therefore if you're sending a file back with Default, your enclosure's name will be Default.hqx.

IV. Step By Step: Vacation Notices

Since AutoShare can auto-reply to incoming messages, it can be used as a means of creating "vacation notices" for users of your MailShare server. What this means is that as you receive mail while you're gone on vacation, the folks who have sent you mail will receive a small note back saying that you'll read their message when you get back--perhaps pointing them to another person who is still in the office while you're out climbing a Hawaiian volcano.

Here's how to set up a vacation notice for one of your MailShare users via AutoShare:

A. Modify their MailShare account.

B. Create a folder for your vacationing user

In AutoShare's Documents folder, create a folder with the same name as your user's account name.

C. Create a Vacation announcement text file.

Ideally, you'll have the user create his or her own text file, with a personalized message, but the text file can also be generic. It doesn't matter too much. Save this file in the folder you created in step 2, with the name "Default".

D. Set up a filter.

While steps one through three will create an auto-reply to any message that comes in, if your user is on a mailing list, every time he receives mail from that list, that list will receive the same form reply. You can see how that would become annoying in quite a hurry. As a result, AutoShare includes a facility to ensure that a person will only receive a vacation message once.

Create a text file with the same name as your user's account name, and place it in the Filters folder you defined in AutoShare's Preferences:Folders dialog. All the file needs to contains is five asterisks:

*****

and you've created a filter that will prevent AutoShare from sending out a vacation notice to the same person twice. (AutoShare manages this by appending the e-mail addresses of people who have written in to the filters file, below the five asterisks.)

AutoShare's filtering can also be used to prevent Vacation messages from going to other folks. For example, if you wanted to prevent anyone at your own company from receiving vacation notices, because they already know who's on vacation, you could insert a line above the asterisks like this:

From: company.com

and AutoShare would not sent out any vacation auto-replies to messages from anyone with "company.com" in their e-mail address.

E. Remove the vacation processor when they return

When your wayward user returns, be sure to turn off "Save as Files..." for their account in MailShare and delete accumulated addresses after the five asterisks in their filter file, so that those people will be notified the next time your user goes on vacation.

V. Step By Step: Running a Listserver

Here's how to create a list for your listserver:

A. Be sure the list server account is operational

In MailShare, create a user with the name AutoShare, as if it were an auto-reply account. Be sure there's a folder within your Documents folder named AutoShare. Within that folder must be files named Default, Get, Help, Index, List, Release, Review, Set, Sub, Unsub, Which, and Query, containing special tokens that cause AutoShare to modify mailing list files. An example of this folder, which you may modify and use yourself, is included in the AutoShare distribution. It is highly recommended you start with these sample files. For more information about the special processing tokens contained within those files, consult the main AutoShare documentation.

If you'd like to have a specialized file, say a FAQ, sent to users upon subscribing to a certain list, you can do so by creating a copy of the Sub file and renaming it Sub.[listname] -- then AutoShare will send that file (which you can modify to include just about any text you like) to users who subscribe to that particular list. Subscription requests to lists without special Sub.[listname] files will receive the standard subscription reply found in the Sub file.

B. Check to see if you need a "Hosts File"

If your mail server acts as more than one domain, you'll need an "AutoShare hosts" file. If you don't know what this means, you probably don't need to worry about it. The key is, if mail sent to more than one machine name ends up at your machine (for example, if you're both wackynet.com and wacky.net), you'll need to create a file which contains all the secondary machine names your Mac is posing as, call it "AutoShare Hosts", and put it in the AutoShare folder in your Preferences folder.

C. Create a list file

bbg@un.org (Boutros Boutros-Ghali)

D. Create a mailing list in MailShare

In MailShare, you'll have to add three new account that are permutations of the name of your mailing list, in this example FUN-L.

HD:Auto:LS:FUN-L.m
HD:Auto:LS:FUN-L.d

Before you test a MailShare-assisted mailing list, make sure the address of your bounce account is set to an account on your MailShare server. Otherwise, AutoShare will refuse to process your list files correctly.

E. Add more lists

To add more lists, simply repeat steps 3 and 4. Really.

HINT: A common way new AutoShare admins test their new list is by subscribing themselves and then sending mail to the list. Since AutoShare by default sends a list message to everyone except the original sender of the message (this is called NOACK, and is described below), if you send a message to a list with only you on it, you'll never see a message come back. To make sure you can see messages you send to your list, send a message to AutoShare with the command "SET [listname] ACK". Then you should be able to test your list to your heart's content.

VI. The AutoShare List Server From the Outside Looking In

While setting up a list server in AutoShare is as simple as the four-step process outlined above, in real life it's a little more complicated than that. You see, once you've got AutoShare up and running, you and your list members have to begin dealing with how AutoShare's list server processes commands via e-mail.

A. AutoShare's Command Set

AutoShare understands the following list server commands: LIST or LISTS, REVIEW or REV or RECIPIENTS or WHO, SUB or SUBSCRIBE, UNSUB or UNSUBSCRIBE or SIGNOFF, SET, INDEX or IND, GET or SEND, WHICH, RELEASE, and QUERY. Let's go through them one by one, and see what they do. (Keep in mind that commands can either be processed in the message body or in the message's subject, depending on which radio button you checked in the Preferences:Miscellaneous dialog.)

1. LIST (or LISTS)

usage:

LIST

LISTS

2. REVIEW (or REV or RECIPIENTS or WHO)

usage:

REVIEW fun-l

REV fun-l

RECIPIENTS fun-l

WHO fun-l

This command displays a list of all the subscribers to a particular mailing list and a count of how many total subscribers there are. If a user has decided to CONCEAL his or herself (see below), they won't appear on this list, though they will be counted among the number of concealed subscribers listed here.

3. SUB (or SUBSCRIBE)

usage:

SUB fun-l Boutros Boutros-Ghali

SUBSCRIBE fun-l Boutros Boutros-Ghali

4. UNSUB (or UNSUBSCRIBE or SIGNOFF)

usage:

UNSUB fun-l

UNSUBSCRIBE fun-l

SIGNOFF fun-l

Use this command to remove yourself from a list. You don't need to give your name.

5. SET

SET is a command with multiple uses.

a. CONCEAL

usage:

SET fun-l CONCEAL

This will remove you from the list of subscribers that's returned when someone sends a REVIEW [listname] command to the list server.

b. NOCONCEAL

usage:

SET fun-l NOCONCEAL

c. DIGEST

usage:

SET fun-l DIGEST

d. NODIGEST

usage:

SET fun-l NODIGEST

e. MAIL

usage:

SET fun-l MAIL

f. NOMAIL

usage:

SET fun-l NOMAIL

g. ACK

usage:

SET fun-l ACK

h. NOACK

usage:

SET fun-l NOACK

6. INDEX (or IND)

usage:

INDEX fun-l

7. (GET or SEND)

usage:

GET fun-l Current.html

The command structure is "GET [listname] [filename]".

8. WHICH

usage:

WHICH

9. RELEASE

usage:

RELEASE

10. QUERY

usage:

QUERY fun-l

VII. For More Information

For more detailed information about AutoShare, consult Mikael Hansen's documentation, which is included with the AutoShare 1.0 distribution and on the AutoShare web site.