Mailing Lists

A mailing list is a convenient way to handle multiple email addresses. By naming a mailing list, and then adding recipients to the list, any email sent to the list name will be sent to all recipients.

To add a new mailing list, choose Action->Add Mailing List from the Mailing Lists application.

Once you create a mailing list, you can open the list to view, add, or delete recipients. Double-click the name of a mailing list to open it.

Adding Email Recipients

You can include four types of email recipients in a mailing list (separate them by commas):

• An individual email address
• The name of a file to which the message will be appended
• A file containing additional addresses
• A program that acts on an email message addressed to the mailing list

An individual address:

An individual address can be local (user1) or remote (user1@company.com). AdminSuite user names are local addresses, which can be included as Mailing List Recipients.

The name of a file to which the message will be appended:

When the name of a recipient starts with a slash (/), the email message addressed to the mailing list is attached to the end of the last message received by the file.

For example, when /usr/share/archive.txt appears as a recipient in the "Accounting" mailing list, every email message sent to Accounting will be appended to the archive.txt file.

The name of a file containing additional addresses:

If you have a file of email addresses, you can include those addresses in the mailing list by starting with ":include:" followed by a path and the name of the file with the addresses.

For example, when :include:/home/user1/mylist.txt is a recipient, a message sent to the mailing list will be mailed to all email addresses in the mylist.txt file.

(In the :include: file, you can enter a separate email address on each line, or include multiple addresses on a line and separate the addresses with commas.)

The name of a program to run:

You can include in the list of recipients a program that runs when the mailing list receives an email. The program, for example, might sort by subject all email sent to the mailing list. The program must begin with a pipe (|).

The program and its arguments can take the form of:

|program

"|program args"

"|program"

|"program"

|"program args"

Example Mailing List

All four types of email recipients can appear in one mailing list.

For example, an email message sent to the following "example" mailing list would be:

• Mailed to user1 (who is remote)
• Appended to the end of the archive.txt file
• Mailed to additional addresses in mylist.txt file
• Run through the notify program

"Example" mailing list:

user1@thebusiness.com,/usr/share/archive.txt,:include:/home/user1/mylist.txt, "|/usr/local/bin/notify root@mailhost"

Special Mailing Lists

Two mailing lists are special: Postmaster and MAILER-DAEMON.

Neither can be deleted. Each must contain at least one email recipient.

Postmaster

Postmaster is the mailing list users can write to when they have questions or problems regarding email. The default email recipient is "root," but you can substitute, or include, the email address of the person responsible for handling email problems.

MAILER-DAEMON

MAILER-DAEMON is the email address users see when undeliverable email is returned, and users often send return mail to MAILER-DAEMON requesting assistance. The default MAILER-DAEMON recipient is "Postmaster." You can include the email address of the person responsible for handling email problems. Or, if you want to discard all email addressed to MAILER-DAEMON, place /dev/null in Mailing List Recipients.