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ML.DOC
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1994-02-09
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ML - Mailing list processor for GIGO users.
Jason Fesler
jfesler@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
fidonet 1:203/7707.0
What it does:
o Reads a given message base (*.MSG or squish style) for new
messages, redistributing to a list of participants via email
o Reads your netmail area, packing any messages it finds that are
meant to be for the gateway, into gigo's .PKT format
What you need to do:
o Edit the ML.CFG to your specification
o Add to your GIGO config file: "PASSWORD yourpassword".
This password _must_ match line 5 of the ml.cfg file.
(This allows ML to use features normally that are not allowed
to be used by your users).
o RTFM!
Any problems, contact me for help.
[02/09/94]
o ML recompiled to handle 2048 messages in your netmail folder instead
of 256 messages. If you have over 2048 messages in your netmail
folder, it's _really_ time to clean it out.. your mailer will
thank you!
[01/14/94]
o ML passes the attribute unaltered into the .PKT, so that it will
"remember" things like receipt requests and file attaches.
[12/29/93]
o ML was not looking at the MSGSENT flag and properly ignoring messages
that have already been packed up by an alternate netmail packer. Fixed.
[12/05/93]
o In the event your .MLL files get trashed, is now marking the messages
when it processes them, so that they will not all be sent back out again.
If you have a good message editor, your editor will mark the messages
as "Return Receipt" or something to that effect.
If you genuinely need the message(s) rescanned, instruct your message
editor to turn that flag off.
This addition to MLL has been added as we have found by experience that
the .MLL files are easy to lose when you have multiple mail processes
going on -- we've had the entire GIGO echo rescanned multiple times to
everyone, which not only cost a lot of phone time for everyone involved,
but was a nightmare answering "yes, I know it spewed".
If you have a better idea for handling things, let me know. Be warned,
I might offer you the source code or something.. ;-)
o If you need to run maintenance on the .MSG directories, simply
delete the .MLL files. Since they are marked as scanned (or, more
precisely, as message receipts), ML will look at them, but not send
them out a second time around.
[11/29/93]
o Ability to _not_ send out messages based on the content of the
fidonet headers or any token in the message body. No more sending
out messages from mail daemons that returned their mail to the mailing
list instead of the "Errors-To:" address.
[11/17/93]
o Writes netmail to the UUCP gateway (GIGO or compatible),
sending a copy of the new messages to GIGO for handling.
GIGO will take the message, along with the list of
mailing addresses, and send just one email message for the
entire list of recipients.
[11/18/93]
o Converts netmail to .PKT files for GIGO to use
- Scans for the GATEWAY'S address in your netmail directory
- also scans for YOUR address, and at least one of the following:
an internet address
the name "UUCP"
Any mail it finds will be converted to .PKT form for GIGO
to read, since GIGO itself is not written for any message
message base format at all, but instead the .PKT transport
mechanism.
What it needs:
o Active experience in handling mailing lists, understanding
principles involved.
o GIGO, or compatible gateway program supporting the ^aPASSWORD
and ^aCCFILE kludge lines.
Why not build this into GIGO itself?
o Memory - the msgapi0 interface itself eats a good 60-80k of memory;
I'd rather not waste that space while GIGO is running
o Dupe management - GIGO would have a teribly hard time trying to
monitor traffic both to the mailing list address and to the
FTN echo itself. It's easier to manage externally.
o ML will send the messages via netmail to GIGO to process, so that
GIGO has a chance to alter any email addresses if need, using the
gateway program's configuration, before dumping it all into the
spool directory.
Acknowledgements:
o ML is "Squish" compatible, as well as *.MSG. I am using
a modified form of Scott Dudley's MSGAPI interface. Full credit
goes to him for creating such a flexible and easy interface
to the message base.
Sample cfg:
--------8< cut here -------------
1:203/8055
1:203/2
$C:\squish\netmail
C:\gateway\pkts
PASSWORD
$E:\msgs\wannabe wannabe.ml wannabe-l@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com wannabe-err@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
$E:\msgs\wme wme.ml wme-l@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com wme-err@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
$E:\msgs\gigo gigo.ml gigo-l@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com gigo-err@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
--------8< cut here -------------
What each line is:
1: "1:203/8055" That's YOUR address
2: "1:203/2" That's the GATEWAY's designated fidonet address.
3: "$C:\squish\netmail" That's the netmail base that you use
for netmail. If you are are not using Squish style bases,
do not specify the dollar sign.
4: "PASSWORD" This is the password that the gateway uses to allow
programs such as the mailing list to include extra headers,
such as "From:", "Reply-To:", etc, overriding the gateway's
defaults.
5: Where GIGO is expecting the .PKT files to be
6-8: These control the actual mailing lists. They contain 4 parameters on
a single line:
message base name or directory ($ denotes squish)
text file containing mailing list addresses of who to send
mail to (one address per line)
posting-address (complete posting address, including domain!)
errors-address (complete posting address, including domain!)
Note, ML will _NOT_ translate your netmail to echomail areas, like Owl does.
It assumes that the gateway software is capable of turning mailing list email
to echos, such as GIGO can do. In GIGO, you would add this to your map file:
@ gigo-l@yoursite.org GIGO null
The @ signifies that it's for the mailing list. Any messages sent to
gigo-l@yoursite.org are turned into the echo called "GIGO". Any messages
written in the GIGO echo are sent to null (nowhere), since the ML program is
already going to be handling things.
Your errors-address (in our case, gigo-err@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com) should ALWAYS
be different than your posting address. If not, if a person loses his
internet address, and the messages bounce back to gigo-l, then all of the
bounce messages are re-broadcast to everyone in the list, including the bad
address, and starts the cycle over. Very messy .. just like my docs! :-)
ML will also look for a file called "ML.BAD". A sample of this file is
included in the archive. It allows you to tell ML which messages should not
be re-broadcast to everyone in the list. You can use this file to stop
things like messages from mailer-daemons from being sent to everyone in your
mailing list.