The List Server

The List Server is an automatic message distribution part of WaterGate that handles mailing lists. A mailing list is a list of e-mail and netmail addresses of people that are interested in that particular mailing list. If a message is distributed by the list server, everybody on that list receives a copy of the message.

So, you can see a mailing list as a more private echomail area or newsgroup. The advantage is that all the intermediate systems don't need to define that particular echo or newsgroup, and users who can receive mail but not news can also participate. WaterGate can handle up to 65000+ mailing lists.

The biggest advantage of mailing lists is the control of who can posts messages to it and not having to read all the spam postings that you find in the newsgroups nowadays.

Subscribing to a mailing list

To subscribe to a mailing list, a user has to send a message to the list server, which can be addressed as "listserv" or "listserver", at any of your system AKAs or at any of your system domain addresses, for example:

ListServer at 2:280/803
or
listserv@wsd.wlink.nl

You can request the list server to perform certain actions for you, just like AreaFix. It doesn't matter if you send a message to the list server via e-mail or via netmail. You use the same commands and you put them in the body of the message. The end of the message is indicated by a tear-line, so don't put any other lines in the message, like "Hi!" or "Bye,", because the list server will try to interpret them as commands.

The following commands are available:

LIST
Request the list server to send a list of all possible mailing lists available at this system.

HELP
Ask the list server to send you information on using the list server. This information is also sent automatically if a user sends an unknown command (or something like "Hi!").

CONNECT listname
SUBSCRIBE listname
Two commands that both put the sender's address on the requested mailing list.

DISCONNECT listname
UNSUBSCRIBE listname
Two commands that remove the sender's address from the requested mailing list.

Notice that the sender's address, or more accurately the reply address, is very important for the list server, as it is put on the mailing list! This is especially important for a UUCP e-mail message, which has to have a proper Reply-To:, Sender:, or From: header (in that order).

As soon as a user receives a reply from the list server indicating that he has been put on the list, he can send a message to the mailing list to have it distributed. Since your system might have more than one mailing list, the message must be sent to the name of the mailing list, on one of your system AKAs or system domain addresses, for example:

WaterGate@wsd.wlink.nl
or
WaterGate at 2:280/803

Names of mailing lists are commonly given the extension -L, to indicate that it is a mailing list and not a normal user. Our own mailing list doesn't have a name like that yet, but if it did, the name would be WaterGate-l@wsd.wlink.nl.

Notice that you MUST NOT put the domain address in the name of the mailing list. Just "WaterGate-L" is all you have to enter. The first system domain address is added automatically.

Setting up a mailing list

To create your own mailing list, select the "Mailing list definitions" option from WtrConf's main menu. The names of all the mailing lists that are currently defined on your system will then be listed.

You can add a list by pressing the Insert key, or remove a list by pressing the Delete key. The Escape key returns you to the main menu. If you want to edit a mailing list definition, you have to press the Enter key.

When editing a (new) mailing list definition, the following screen is used:

Mailing List Definition

List name

Enter the name of the mailing list here. This name has to be unique on your system, so make sure there are no users with the same name! You might want to put -L at the end of the name, to indicate that it is a mailing list and reduce the chance of it being the same as a user's e-mail address.

You MUST NOT type in a domain address here. The first system domain address is added automatically when sending to a UUCP system. Remember that the mailing list is accessible from within FidoNet as well, so don't type in a domain address!!

Description

You can use the description line to describe this mailing list. This line is used in the lists the list server sends in response to the LIST command.

Welcome file

The welcome file is sent when someone connects to this list. It should contain some information about the mailing list: the purpose, the language to use, and how to disconnect from it. The welcome file is a normal ASCII textfile and can contain tokens, just like the AreaFix and newsfix .TXT files. See the chapter "Installing the .TXT files" and appendix A for more information on tokens.

Private list

This toggle defines whether the list is private or not. Private lists do not show up in the list of public mailing lists that people can connect to using the list server. You have to maintain (connect / disconnect people) private lists manually.

Only known

If you set this toggle to YES, only systems that are defined in your userbase can connect to the list. This is a middle way between public access (Private list to NO) and complete manual access (Private list to YES).

Active

This toggle determines whether this list is currently active. A disabled list is completely ignored and hidden by your system.

It won't show up in the lists and users can neither connect to nor disconnect from it.

AKA

Select a system AKA for messages sent into FidoNet. This AKA is used as a From address for all messages sent by this list.

This will be changed in a future release, because the List Server is addressable on all your system AKAs. It will then use the most closely matching system AKA when replying to the message sender. This AKA will then be used when a message is sent to the list from UUCP and has to be translated to FidoNet. It is currently also used when a message is translated to an echomail message, but that will change also, since areas have an Origin AKA.

Area name

It is possible to connect a mailing list to an echomail area. This gives you several extra abilities, such as connecting a messagebase to a mailing list.

Echo to list

This toggle determines whether WaterGate allows message that were written in the area (or messagebase) to be sent out on the mailing list.

List to echo

If you set this option to YES, WaterGate will copy all the messages that were distributed via the mailing list to the area as well (and into the messagebase, if it is connected to one).

Default access

As described below. When a new user subscribes to the list, the access type in this field is used for the new entry.

Subscribers

If you press Enter on this field, you will be presented with a list of addresses of all the users that are currently connected to this mailing list. You can edit the list manually with the Insert, Delete, and Enter keys.

When adding a new user, you have can select either a Fido user, UUCP user or Gateway user. The first can be reached using netmail, the second using UUCP or SMTP and the third is a bit special.

If you system doesn't have a connection to the Internet, but you are a sub-domain of a system running the gateway, and you are running a mailing list, then the address to reach the user on the Internet is via the gateway at your uplink. In that case, select Gateway user, enter the details of the gateway and the e-mail address of the user.

Using the access type you can block the user from posting messages via the mailing list (very useful for announcement lists), or you can configure a user to not receive any messages, but use the address for posting messages only. The access type Full allows both posting and receiving.

Back to Table of Contents or continue to the next section.

Comments or questions? Send an e-mail to editor@wsd.wline.se.

Last updated 13 October 1996