Post.Office List Owner's Guide

Preface

Welcome to Post.Office!

The Post.Office List Owner’s Guide explains the use and management of mailing lists. This volume is supplemented by the complete suite of Post.Office manuals, including an Installation Guide, an Administration Guide, and a User’s Guide. Together they provide the reference material and instruction sets required for a complete understanding of the Post.Office mail server software.

Structure of the Manual

This manual is organized by function. Operations are presented in order of probable use, but feel free to review the information in whatever manner you desire - even skip sections if the content is familiar.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of mailing list management. It contains discussions on the nature of mailing lists and the responsibilities of list ownership.

Chapter 2 describes the mailing list settings under your control. Each attribute is described in detail, with recommended entries and relevant cautions provided where appropriate.

Chapter 3 covers mailing list moderation. You’ll learn how to control subscriptions to your lists and how to approve or reject messages submitted for posting.

Chapter 4 documents the E-mail interface to mailing list management. If you plan to manage your mailing lists via a web browser exclusively, you may choose not to read this chapter. However, as it is likely that many subscribers will be accessing your lists via
E-mail you may wish to familiarize yourself with this interface as well.

Happy reading!

Style and Conventions

Consistency is the key. In order to make this manual as easy to use as Post.Office, we’ve adopted the following conventions:

Notes, Warnings, and Helpful Hints

Occasionally, a comment will be inserted in the text. The paragraphs that follow identify the types of comments and their intended use.

Note: Notes alert you to information of special interest or provide clarification on the use of a particular Post.Office feature. Notes supplement standard content and are not required reading.

Warning: Warnings contain critical information. Typical warnings include cautions about maintaining system security and avoiding overburdening your mail server. Failure to read a warning may have serious consequences.

Helpful Hint: As you may have guessed, the helpful hints suggest ways to make your life easier. The tips are based on suggestions from other Post.Office users, including the Software.com "Postmistress."

UNIX: Certain comments and instructions apply to UNIX users only. Post.Office users whose system is installed on Windows NT should ignore these discussions.

Windows NT: Other comments and instructions apply to Windows NT users only. Any comments associated with the NT label can be safely ignored by UNIX users.

Terminology and Type

Fields and forms are referenced by their proper names.
Literal entries (commands and such) appear in monospaced type.
Links are underlined and in boldface.
Variable names appear in italics.
Optional entries appear in [square brackets].

Standard Examples

Generic Term Standard Examples Meaning in this Manual
domain software.com a partial domain name (host name excluded)
host.domain sparky.software.com a fully qualified domain name (with host name included)
user@domain john.doe@software.com a sample user’s E-mail address
list@domain
list@host.domain biking@software.com
biking@sparky.software.com a mailing list address; the address to which messages are submitted for posting
list-request@domain biking-request@software.com a mailing list request address; the address to which commands and requests for subscription or unsubscription are sent.
owner-list@domain owner-biking@software.com the list owner alias address; the address used to correspond with the mailing list owner

Questions and Comments

Copies of this manual can be obtained by anonymous FTP to ftp.software.com or from our web site at http://www.software.com. If you can’t find an answer to your question in the manual, check the list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), also located on our web site at http://www.software.com.

To suggest improvements or provide feedback on the content of this manual, send E-mail to Post.Office.Manual@Software.com

Legal Notices

The Post.Office documentation is copyright 1994-97 Software.com, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this documentation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems, for any purpose other than personal use, without the express written permission of Software.com, Inc.

Trademarks

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this documentation, and Software.com was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial caps or all caps.

Post.Office and Software.com are trademarks of Software.com, Inc.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL SOFTWARE.COM BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

The MD5 Message-Digest algorithm

License to copy and use this software is granted provided that it is identified as the "RSA Data Security, Inc. MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm" in all material mentioning or referencing this software or this function.

License is also granted to make and use derivative works provided that such works are identified as "derived from the RSA Data Security, Inc. MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm" in all material mentioning or referencing the derived work.

RSA Data Security, Inc. makes no representations concerning either the merchantability of this software or the suitability of this software for any particular purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty of any kind.

These notices must be retained in any copies of any part of this documentation and/or software.

The Regular Expression Routines

The Regular Expression Routines used in Post.Office are c 1992-94 Henry Spencer. All rights reserved. This software is not subject to any license of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company or of the Regents of the University of California.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose on any computer system, and to alter it and redistribute it, subject to the following restrictions:

The author is not responsible for the consequences of use of this software, no matter how awful, even if they arise from flaws in it.
The origin of this software must not be misrepresented, either by explicit claim or by omission. Since few users ever read sources, credits must appear in the documentation.
Altered versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software. Since few users ever read sources, credits must appear in the documentation.
This notice may not be removed or altered.

The Regents of the University of California Copyright

This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by Mike Olson.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Re-distributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Re-distributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgment: This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors. 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS’’ AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Generic Term	Standard Examples	Meaning in this Manual
domain	software.com	a partial domain name (host name excluded)
host.domain	sparky.software.com	a fully qualified domain name (with host name included)
user@domain	john.doe@software.com	a sample user’s E-mail address
list@domain list@host.domain	biking@software.com biking@sparky.software.com	a mailing list address; the address to which messages are submitted for posting
list-request@domain	biking-request@software.com	a mailing list request address; the address to which commands and requests for subscription or unsubscription are sent.
owner-list@domain	owner-biking@software.com	the list owner alias address; the address used to correspond with the mailing list owner