[Chapter 25] 25.6 Packages That Help
Author: Bryan Costales & Eric Allman
Date: 1999-01-06T19:39:36Z

#

| Chapter 25 Mailing Lists and ~/.forward |

## 25.6 Packages That Help

As the number and size of mailing lists at your site become large, you may wish to install a software package that automates list management. All of the following packages are available via anonymous FTP.

### 25.6.1 Majordomo

The Majordomo mailing-list management software was written by Brent Chapman using the perl(1) language. Its chief features are that it allows users to subscribe to and remove themselves from lists without list manager intervention and that it allows list managers to manage lists remotely. In addition, users can obtain help and list descriptions with simple mail requests. Note that Majordomo aids in managing a list (the list addresses) but does not aid in list moderation (the contents of mail messages). Majordomo is available via anonymous FTP from:

> ftp://FTP.GreatCircle.COM/pub/majordomo/

### 25.6.2 Almanac

The Almanac mailing-list management software was written at Oregon State University, Extension Service, in the C language. It allows users to subscribe to and be removed from mailing lists themselves, without maintainer intervention, and also services requests for file transfers (similar to FTP) via email. It is purported to be highly configurable in that the grammar for requests is determined by the site administrator, and any request can be bound to any (predefined) Bourne shell program. For example, Almanac sites in France are at liberty to speak French to their Almanac server. The Almanac software is available via anonymous FTP from:

> ftp://OES.OrSt.EDU/pub/almanac/

### 25.6.3 ListProcessor

The ListProcessor system was written by Tasos Kotsikonas. It is an automated system for managing mailing lists that replaces the aliases file for that use. According to the author, it includes support for "public and private hierarchical archives, moderated lists, peer lists, peer servers, private lists, address aliasing, news connections and gateways, mail queueing, list ownership, owner preferences, crash recovery, and batch processing." The system also accepts Internet connections for "live" processing of requests at port 372 (as assigned by the IANA). [5] The ListProcessor system is available via anonymous ftp from:

> [5] IANA stands for Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. It is currently housed in Marina del Rey, California, and staffed by Joyce Reynolds and Jon Postel (iana@isi.edu).

> ftp://cs-ftp.bu.edu/pub/listserv

25.5 Problems with Mailing Lists |  | 25.7 The User's ~/.forward File