OpenBSD Mailing List Server

                    Introduction to Subscriber Management

In an ideal world, people who subscribe to your mailing list would
never need your attention.  In practice, sometimes you will need
to assist people who cannot help themselves.  This document explains 
some ways to make this job easier, such as...

  * searching the list of subscribers
  * unsubscribing several addresses with one command
  * seeing which subscribers are not receiving mail

The examples in this document assume that you know how to use your 
list's administrative password.  Please review "help admin_passwords",
if you have not already done so.  In each example, replace LISTNAME
with the name of your mailing list, and ADDRESS with the e-mail address
of a subscriber.  ADDRESS can include the name of the subscriber, for example,
  John Doe <anonymous@example.com>


Viewing the subscriber list
---------------------------

The who command will display the list of subscribers.  The simplest use
of this command, 

  who LISTNAME

will show every e-mail address that is subscribed to the list.  Using
the "enhanced" command mode will cause the delivery class and personal
settings for each subscriber to be displayed.  For example, the command

  who-enhanced LISTNAME

might show the following result:

  Judy <sister@example.com>                       PRSbd    digest-daily-text
  Joe <brother@example.com>                       CSd      each

The letters in the second column are "flags," abbreviations for personal
settings.  The words in the third column are the "delivery class."
The "help who" document shows a table of the flags and their
abbreviations.  The "help set" file describes each of the flags.  
"help admin_delivery" presents a simple introduction to delivery classes.

If there are many addresses subscribed to a mailing list, some of
them inevitably will have trouble receiving  mail.  Error messages about 
delivery problems are called "bounces," and the addresses that are
experiencing such problems can be seen with the who-bounce command:

  who-bounce LISTNAME

This command displays a count of error messages over the past week and
month, the sequence numbers of the messages that bounced, and in some cases
a diagnostic message that indicates why the delivery failed.

It is also possible to search the subscriber list using the who command
with a pattern (see "help patterns" for more information).  For example,
the command

  who LISTNAME edu

would display a list of all subscribers with "edu" in their name or
e-mail address.

For more details, see "help who".


Adding and removing subscribers
-------------------------------

The simplest way to add or remove an address is with a one-line command:

  subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS
  unsubscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS

List owners can also use a here document to add or remove addresses, to 
save some typing.  The following command...

subscribe LISTNAME <<DONE
John <john@example.net>
Fred <fred@example.net>
Martha <martha@example.net>
DONE

...would add three addresses to the mailing list.

Addresses can also be removed using a pattern.  For example,

  unsubscribe-pattern-allmatching LISTNAME edu

would remove all addresses containing "edu" from the mailing list.
See "help subscribe", "help unsubscribe", "help here_document", and
"help patterns" for more details.


Personal settings
-----------------

Several personal settings are available to customize how messages 
are delivered to each subscriber.  The settings of new subscribers 
are often determined by the default_class and default_flags configuration 
settings.  However, the subscribe-set command allows the default settings 
to be overridden.  For example, new subscribers who wish to receive messages 
in digests can be placed in the "digest" delivery class with this command:

  subscribe-set LISTNAME digest ADDRESS

The personal settings of subscribers can be changed with the set command.  
For example,

  set LISTNAME each,noselfcopy ADDRESS

would set the delivery class to "each", turn off the "selfcopy" setting, 
and leave the other personal settings unchanged.

Settings for more than one address can be changed with one command using 
a here document or a pattern.  For example,

set-pattern-allmatching LISTNAME nomail <<LMN
/washington.edu/i
/oregon.edu/i
LMN

would change the delivery class of all washington.edu and oregon.edu
subscribers to "nomail".

For more information, see "help configset_default_flags",  "help set",
and "help configset_default_class".  Examples of how the personal settings 
affect delivery may be found in "help admin_delivery".


Welcome and farewell
--------------------

When people join a mailing list, they are usually sent a welcome message
with instructions for leaving the list.  When people leave the list, they
usually do not receive a farewell message.  However, it is possible
to do things differently.  For example, to subscribe someone without
sending a welcome message, use this command:

  subscribe-nowelcome LISTNAME someone@example.com

and to unsubscribe someone with a farewell message, use this command:

  unsubscribe-farewell LISTNAME someone@example.com

For details on how to customize the welcome and farewell messages, see
"help admin_documents".


Restricting access
------------------

Any rules for the set, subscribe, unsubscribe, or who command in the 
access_rules configuration setting take precedence in determining who
has access to the commands.  If none of the access rules is applicable,
the policy or access setting for the command holds sway.  For more
information, see the following documents:

   help admin_config
   help configset_access_rules
   help configset_set_policy
   help configset_subscribe_policy
   help configset_unsubscribe_policy
   help configset_who_access


Aliases and address changes
---------------------------

Some subscribers may want to post messages to a mailing list from
more than one address.  The alias command can be used to tell Majordomo
that two addresses belong to the same person.  A site or domain
administrator can issue these commands to create an alias.

  default user OLDADDRESS
  alias NEWADDRESS

The OLDADDRESS must already have been subscribed to at least one mailing list, 
and the NEWADDRESS must not already be registered.  The alias applies
to all of the subscriber's subscriptions.

Some subscribers may change their e-mail address, and want to move 
all of their subscriptions to the new address.  A site or domain
administrator can issue these commands to change the address:

  default user NEWADDRESS
  changeaddr OLDADDRESS

The password, aliases, and subscription settings will be transferred from
OLDADDRESS to NEWADDRESS.  If both addresses are subscribed to a
mailing list, the subscription for OLDADDRESS will be discarded.

Do not use a list's administrative password with the alias or changeaddr
command.  Only a domain or site password (level 3 or above; see 
"help admin_passwords" for details) or the subscriber's personal password
will help.  This is true because the changes apply to all mailing lists,
but a list's password only has the power to make changes for one mailing
list.

See "help alias" and "help changeaddr" for more details.


See Also:
   help admin
   help admin_commands
   help admin_config
   help admin_delivery
   help admin_documents
   help admin_moderate
   help admin_monitor
   help admin_passwords
   help alias
   help changeaddr
   help configset_welcome
   help configset_welcome_files
   help set
   help subscribe
   help unsubscribe
   help who

This is the "admin_subscribers" 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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