Re: [cobalt-users] Mailing List Limitations?

["Steve Werby" <steve-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Greg" <gcaron@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Does anyone have any information on any limitations or restrictions of the
> builtin mailing list feature on the RAQ4's?

The mailing list software installed on the RaQs is Majordomo.  Majordomo's
home is at http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/.  There is also a fairly
active mailing list for users and a web archive.  See
http://www.greatcircle.com/lists/majordomo-users/.  If you're going to do
searches of the archives I recommend using the archive and search front-end
at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=majordomo-users.

> I'm specifically looking to see
> if it is possible to host a mailing list with over 1000 users on the list.

Absolutely.

> Also, is there a way to restrict how many emails the list can send/receive

That functionality is not built into Majordomo.  To accomplish that I'd
recommend writing a small script (Perl, PHP, bash or your favorite language)
and adding a pipe to it in aliases.majordomo for the particular list.  The
script will need to increment a text file or db record and compare the
current count against the limit you set in a file or db and either let the
message be delivered, reject it and alternately pass on an email to the list
owner letting he/she know the limit has been met.

> and the size of the emails that can be sent?

Edit the list's config file.  You'll find it in
/usr/local/majordomo/host.domain.tld/.  Find the line beginning "maxlength"
and set the variable as you see fit.  Spend some time looking at the config
file to get an idea of how you can configure the list.  You can either edit
the config file manually or send email commands to majordomo to grab the
list config file, send it back with changes, etc.  Note that it's possible
that manual changes you make may be overwritten by the Cobalt GUI.  There's
also a web-based front-end for Majordomo called Majorcool, but b/c of
limitations of the Cobalt install of Majordomo you'll probably have to
install a second copy of Majordomo, configure it properly (unlike Cobalt
did) and install Majordomo to work with that copy.  I've done that
successfully for clients and myself on the RaQ2 and RaQ3.  There's no reason
it won't work on a RaQ4.  FYI, you can install as many majordomo instances
as you want (if you had a good reason) since they don't conflict with each
other.

HTH,

--
Steve Werby
President, Befriend Internet Services LLC
http://www.befriend.com/