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Majordomo has two kinds of password, administrative and personal.  This
document describes administrative passwords.  For more information on
personal passwords, see "help password".

All passwords have a minimum length, which is determined by the GLOBAL
password_min_length configuration setting.  That length is 6 characters
by default.

There are five levels of administrative password:

5. The site master password, determined by the person who installed Majordomo
at your site.  A site master password can be used to manage any Majordomo 
mailing list in any virtual domain at the site.

4. Domain master passwords, one for each virtual domain, determined by the 
person who installed Majordomo at your site.  A domain password is stored
in the master_password setting for the GLOBAL pseudo-list.  The domain master
password can be used to manage any mailing list within a domain.

3. Domain auxiliary passwords, as defined by the GLOBAL passwords setting.
Auxiliary passwords can be limited to a small group of commands, or
restricted to one particular person.

2. List master passwords, one for each mailing list, assigned randomly 
when the createlist command is run.  A list master password is stored 
in the master_password configuration setting for each mailing list.

1. List auxiliary passwords, as defined by the list's passwords setting.
Auxiliary passwords can be limited to a small group of commands, or
restricted to one particular person.

With the exception of auxiliary passwords, which can optionally be tied to
particular e-mail addresses, it does not matter from which address you
issue commands.  Anyone who knows an administrative password for a mailing
list can manage that list.

When you issue administrative commands, it is usually necessary to give
your administrative password.  There are two ways to do this.  The first
is to prefix each command with the approve command.

Example:
  approve PASSWORD subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS

The second way is to use the default command to indicate the password
for the commands that follow.

Example:
  default password PASSWORD
  subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS 

In each example, you must substitute an administrative password for
PASSWORD, your mailing list's name for LISTNAME, and and a valid e-mail
address for ADDRESS. 


The "Approved" header
---------------------
If commands are sent in an e-mail message, it is possible to specify
a default password using an Approved header, for example:

Approved: PASSWORD

The main purpose of this feature is to be consistent with the use of
Approved headers to authenticate posted messages.  Please see the
'"Approved" messages' section of the "help admin_moderate" document for
more details about the use of Approved headers in posted messages.


One password should never be used on two different levels
---------------------------------------------------------
If an administrative password has two possible levels, Majordomo uses
the lower level, for security purposes.  For example, if the site and
domain master passwords are identical, the server will always treat the
password as if it were the domain master password (level 4).  As a
result, that password could never be used to issue commands that require
the (level 5) site password.


See also:
   help admin  (an introduction to list management)
   help admin_commands       (an introduction to commands for list owners)
   help approve                    (to provide a password for one command)
   help configset_access_password_override 
   help configset_config_access    (to control access to the config commands)
   help configset_master_password  (the main administrative password)
   help configset_passwords        (to create auxiliary passwords)
   help configset_password_min_length
   help default                    (to authenticate multiple commands)
   help password                   (used to change a personal password)
   help register                   (used to obtain a personal password)

This is the "admin_passwords" help document for 
Majordomo 2, version 0.1201103110.

For a list of all help documents, send the following command:
   help topics
in the body of a message to majordomo@openbsd.org.

For assistance, please contact the openbsd.org administrators.

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