This chapter describes what a mailing list is made of within Sympa environment.
See list aliases section, 17.1,
page )
The configuration file for the mylist list is named /home/sympa/expl/my.domain.org/mylist/config (or /home/sympa/expl/mylist/config if no virtual host is defined). Sympa reloads it into memory whenever this file has changed on disk. The file can either be edited via the web interface or directly via your favourite text editor.
A binary version of the config (/home/sympa/expl/my.domain.org/mylist/config.bin is maintained to allow a faster restart of daemons (this is especialy usefull for sites managing lots of lists).
Be careful to provide read access for Sympa user to this file !
You will find a few configuration files in the sample directory.
List configuration parameters are described in the list creation section, 20, page .
This first example is for a list open to everyone:
subject First example (an open list) visibility noconceal owner email Pierre.David@prism.uvsq.fr send public review public
The second example is for a moderated list with authenticated subscription:
subject Second example (a moderated list) visibility noconceal owner email moi@ici.fr editor email big.prof@ailleurs.edu send editor subscribe auth review owner reply_to_header value list cookie 142cleliste
The third example is for a moderated list, with subscription controlled by the owner, and running in digest mode. Subscribers who are in digest mode receive messages on Mondays and Thursdays.
owner email moi@ici.fr editor email prof@ailleurs.edu send editor subscribe owner review owner reply_to_header value list digest 1,4 12:00
Be carefull: Since version 3.3.6 of Sympa, a RDBMS is required for internal data storage. Flat file should not be use anymore except for testing purpose. Sympa will not use this file if the list is configured with include or database user_data_source.
The /home/sympa/expl/mylist/subscribers file is automatically created and populated. It contains information about list subscribers. It is not advisable to edit this file. Main parameters are:
E-mail address of subscriber.
Information about subscriber (last name, first name, etc.) This parameter is optional at subscription time.
Special receive modes which the subscriber may select.
Special modes can be either nomail, digest, summary, notice, txt,
html, urlize, not_me .
In normal receive mode, the receive attribute
for a subscriber is not displayed. In this mode subscription to message topics is available.
See the SET LISTNAME SUMMARY (27.1,
page ),
the SET LISTNAME NOMAIL command (27.1,
page
), and the digest
parameter (20.4.9, page
).
Special mode which allows the subscriber to remain invisible when
a REVIEW command is issued for the list. If this
parameter is not declared, the subscriber will be visible
for REVIEW. Note: this option does not affect
the results of a REVIEW command issued by an
owner. See the SET LISTNAME MAIL command (27.1, page ) for
details.
/home/sympa/expl/mylist/info should contain a detailed text description of the list, to be displayed by the INFO command. It can also be referenced from template files for service messages.
/home/sympa/expl/mylist/homepage is the HTML text on the WWSympa info page for the list.
Sympa will use these files only if the list is configured in include2 user_data_source mode.
Every file has the .incl extension.
More over, these files must be declared in paragraphs owner_include or editor_inlude in the list configuration file
without the .incl extension (see 20, page ).
This files can be template file.
Sympa looks for them in the following order :
These files are used by Sympa to load administrative data in a relational database : Owners or editors are defined intensively (definition of criteria owners or editors must satisfy). Includes can be performed by extracting e-mail addresses using an SQL or LDAP query, or by including other mailing lists.
A data inclusion file is composed of paragraphs separated by blank lines and introduced by a keyword.
Valid paragraphs are include_file, include_list, include_remote_sympa_list,
include_sql_query and include_ldap_query. They are described in the list configuration parameters chapitre, 20, page .
When this file is a template, used variables are array elements (param array). This array is instantiated by values contained in the subparameter source_parameter of owner_include or editor_inlude.
Example :
owner_include source myfile source_parameters mysql,rennes1,stduser,mysecret,studentbody,student
include_sql_query db_type [% param.0 %] host sqlserv.admin.univ-[% param.1 %].fr user [% param.2 %] passwd [% param.3 %] db_name [% param.4 %] sql_query SELECT DISTINCT email FROM [% param.5 %]
include_sql_query db_type mysql host sqlserv.admin.univ-rennes1.fr user stduser passwd mysecret db_name studentbody sql_query SELECT DISTINCT email FROM student
These files are used by Sympa as service messages for commands such as
SUB, ADD, SIG, DEL, REJECT.
These files are interpreted (parsed) by Sympa and respect the template
format ; every file has the .tt2 extension. See 16.1,
page .
Sympa looks for these files in the following order :
If the file starts with a From: line, it is taken to be a full message and will be sent (after parsing) without the addition of SMTP headers. Otherwise the file is treated as a text/plain message body.
The following variables may be used in list template files :
You may also dynamically include a file from a template using the [% INSERT %] directive.
Example:
Dear [% user.email %], Welcome to list [% list.name %]@[% list.host %]. Presentation of the list : [% INSERT 'info' %] The owners of [% list.name %] are : [% FOREACH ow = list.owner %] [% ow.value.gecos %] <[% ow.value.email %]> [% END %]
Sympa will send a welcome message for every subscription. The welcome message can be customized for each list.
Sympa will send a farewell message for each SIGNOFF mail command received.
This message is sent to users who have been deleted (using the DELETE command) from the list by the list owner.
Sympa will send a reject message to the senders of messages rejected by the list editor. If the editor prefixes her REJECT with the keyword QUIET, the reject message will not be sent.
This message is sent to users who have been invited (using the INVITE command) to subscribe to a list.
You may use additional variables
This file contains a message sent to each subscriber
when one of the list owners sends the REMIND command
(see 27.2, page ).
Template for summaries (reception mode close to digest),
see 27.1, page .
Template that defines list mail alises. It is used by the alias_manager script.
/home/sympa/expl/mylist/stats is a text file containing statistics about the list. Data are numerics separated by white space within a single line :
These files are used by Sympa to create task files. They are interpreted (parsed)
by the task manager and respect the task format. See 16.8, page .
Every year Sympa will send a message (the template remind.tt2) to all subscribers of the list to remind them of their subscription.
Every month Sympa will delete subscribers older than one year who haven't answered two warning messages.
You may create /home/sympa/expl/mylist/message.header and /home/sympa/expl/mylist/message.footer files. Their content is added, respectively at the beginning and at the end of each message before the distribution process. You may also include the content-type of the appended part (when footer_type list parameter s set to mime) by renaming the files to message.header.mime and message.footer.mime.
The footer_type list parameter defines whether to attach the header/footer content as a MIME part (except for multipart/alternative messages), or to append them to the message body (for text/plain messages).
Under certain circumstances, Sympa will NOT add headers/footers, here is its algorythm :
if message is not multipart/signed if footer_type==append if message is text/plain append header/footer to it else if message is multipart AND first part is text/plain append header/footer to first part if footer_type==mime if message is not multipart/alternative add header/footer as a new MIME part
The /home/sympa/expl/mylist/archives/ directory contains the
archived messages for lists which are archived; see 20.6.1,
page . The files are named in accordance with the
archiving frequency defined by the archive parameter.