Setting Up Simple Mailing Lists

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The simplest way to set up a mailing list under qmail is to create a dot-qmail file containing the list members.

For example, say rachel wants to create a mailing list so her friends can easily send messages to each other. To create the list, she edits the file $HOME/.qmail-friends and uses multiple forward delivery instructions, as in Listing 9-1.

Listing 9-1: A simple mailing list

 &rachel &[e-mail] &[e-mail] &erica 

To send a message to the list, she addresses it to rachel-friends, just like any other extension address. Each recipient will receive a copy of the message addressed to rachel-friends@domain. The recipients—and anyone else who knows the name of the list—can also send messages to it.

Tip 

Because simple mailing lists are merely dot-qmailfiles, mailbox and program deliveries are also allowed. A mailbox delivery could be used to archive messages sent to the list, and a program delivery such as |bouncesaying"password required" except grep listpassword could be used to reject messages that don't contain the string listpassword.

If this mailing list contains an invalid address, the bounce message will be returned to whoever sent the message. That person will then have to notify rachel so she can correct the list. qmail includes a handy feature that lets the list owner intercept list bounces. If rachel creates a .qmail-friends-owner file, the envelope return path for messages re-sent through rachel-friends will be set to rachel-friends-owner. Because bounce messages are sent to the envelope return path, they'll be delivered according to rachel's instructions. For example, to have bounces delivered via the default delivery instructions, she can simply create an empty .qmail-friends-owner file:

 $ touch ~/.qmail-friends-owner $ 

To add or remove members from the list, rachel edits $HOME/.qmail-friends. To temporarily disable deliveries while she's editing dot-qmail files, she sets the sticky bit on her home directory. For example:

 $ chmod +t $HOME edits $HOME/.qmail-friends $ chmod -t $HOME $ 

Simple mailing lists are appropriate when sophisticated features such as automatic subscription/unsubscription, bounce handling, and archived message retrieval aren't required.

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