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majordomo and virtual mailing lists
3 April 1999
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One great strength of majordomo is the ability to run virtual mailing lists, like blacktop@theirdomain.org
and potplants@yourdomain.org, from the same machine. If you want to know more about virtual machines, see http://cybernut.com/guides/virtual.html |
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The resources
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| As with everything, I don't figure these things out on my own. I use what someone else has already written. In this case, I've used the majordomo FAQ which contains a section on virtual domains. From there, it refers to Ernest Mueller's extremely useful article on Configuring Virtual Domains. | ||||||||||
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Assumption
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| I will assume you have already configured sendmail to handle virtual domains.
I used Jim Mock's article on sendmail Virtual
Hosting. I found it very easy, using that article, to add virtual sendmail
domains to my machine. I will also assume you have already installed
majordomo. For this example, you are creating the mailing list yourlist@yourdomain.org. |
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A new majordomo configuration file
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I created a new config file for the virtual domain yourdomain.org (if you already have
other virtual domains sitting around, you could use that majordomo configuration file as a starting point) :
# cd /usr/local/majordomo # cp majordomo.cf majordomo.yourdomain.org.cf # chown majordom:majordom majordomo.yourdomain.org.cf Then I modified the new file to contain these values: $whereami = "yourdomain.org"; $listdir = "$homedir/lists/$whereami"; $digest_work_dir = "$homedir/lists/$whereami/digests"; $log = "$homedir/lists/$whereami/Log"; |
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New virtual users
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| These are the aliases you need to add to /etc/mail/virtusertable. A
template is available from samples/majordomo.virtusertable.txt.
Make the changes as shown in the comments at the top of the file. Here is what you can find in the template. # # yourdomain.com # owner-majordomo@yourdomain.com owner-majordomo-yourdomain-com majordomo-owner@yourdomain.com owner-majordomo-yourdomain-com majordomo@yourdomain.com majordomo-yourdomain-com The following is needed for each list in a given virtual domain: # # yourlist mailing list # yourlist-owner@yourdomain.com owner-yourlist-yourdomain-com owner-yourlist@yourdomain.com owner-yourlist-yourdomain-com yourlist@yourdomain.com yourlist-yourdomain-com yourlist-request@yourdomain.com yourlist-yourdomain-com-request yourlist-approval@yourdomain.com yourlist-yourdomain-com-approval If you have a digest version of your list, you'll need one of the above sections for the list and another one for the digest. After you add these entries, you need to build the virtual user database. To do so, run the following command: makemap hash /etc/mail/virtusertable < /etc/mail/virtusertable |
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A new majordomo alias file
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We will now create an alias file which defines both mojordomo for this domain and the mailing list. This file defines aliases for a digest. A template is example in a separate file because the lines are very long. Use the template text available from sample/majordomo.alias.txt. As you example that template, let's assume the following:
If that is the case, then you need to make the following changes to the template data:
This file goes in /etc/mail. Name it aliases.majordomo.yourdomain.com. You will also need to add this file to /etc/mail/sendmail.cf, or, if you are using it, your sendmail.m4 file (see following sections for details). Here's an example: location of alias file O AliasFile=/etc/mail/aliases,/etc/mail/aliases.majordomo.yourdomain.com After creating the file and updating sendmail.cf, remember to run newaliases. See the next sections for details. |
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Tell sendmail about the majordomo aliases
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Now that we have created these majordomo aliases, we need to make sure that sendmail
knows about them. We do that by modifying the our .mc file.
Instructions for modifying your .mc file are included in the upgrading sendmail article. In short,
here's what you do:# cd /usr/ports/mail/sendmail-8.9.3/cf/cf/ .mc files are normally of the form hostname.mc, where hostname is the name of your machine. If you don't have a .mc file, you are welcome to use samples/hendrix.mc from my system. You will need to edit this file and ensure the following appears in that file:
WARNING: the above "define" example should be all on one line. It appears as two lines above to keep the page narrow. The key point here is that you add the alias file which you created in the previous step. Now you need to generate your new sendmail.cf file: # m4 ../m4/cf.m4 hostname.mc > sendmail.cf # cp /etc/sendmail.cf /etc/sendmail.cf.bak # cp sendmail.cf /etc |
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Create new aliases
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After adding new aliases, you must recreate the alias database. This is done
simply by issuing the following command:# newaliases You should check for errors by doing the following: # tail /var/log/messages The following indicates a successful run:
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If you created a digest for your list, you'll have to create and chown the respective
directoires. I originally did this in Creating a digest and
archive for a majordomo mailing list but I've copied the relevent bits here.
Again, subsitute as appropriate for your situation.# Let's assume the following: # your list name is mountainbikes # your domain name is mountainbikes.com # # Then you need to make the following changes: # original text new text # yourlist mountainbikes # yourdomain.com mountainbike.com mkdir /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.com/digests/ chown majordom /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.com/digests mkdir /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.com/digests/yourlist-digest chown majordom /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.com/digests/yourlist-digest chmod 750 /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.com/digests/yourlist-digest mkdir /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.com/yourlist.archive chown majordom /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.com/yourlist.archive chmod 750 /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.com/yourlist.archive |
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Restart sendmail and check for errors
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After all of this work, it's time to restart sendmail so it can take notice
of the new aliases you have created.# killall -HUP sendmail Check for any errors by doing this: # tail /var/log/maillog If it looks something like this, then you're OK ns sendmail[90896]: restarting /usr/sbin/sendmail on signal ns sendmail[90901]: starting daemon (8.9.3): SMTP+queueing@00:15:00 |
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Creating a new list
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For this example, I'll be using my creation of the New Zealand FreeBSD User Group (nzfug) mailing list. The address we want to use for subscribing is majordomo@yourdomain.org. These steps will put all mailing lists relating to a given domain in the directory /usr/local/majordomo/lists/yourdomain.org. Remember this point when it comes time to configure majordomo in the following sections.
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Finished
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| With all that work, you should now be able to use your virtual mailing lists.
Try subscribing. See what happens. Remember, when you subscribe, you need to
send to majordomo@yourdomain.org. I've just rewritten large portions of this article. If you notice any omissions or errors, please add your comments. |
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