Chas,
In message <0chgivk5a87gec08q7g97raosqo781cm1e@4ax.com> on Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 05:31:23PM -0500, schuetzen wrote:
what i want to delete is stuff which is ATTACHED to the body of the message,
As far as I can see, Mailman will do that for you. But first...
You do not seem to understand how mail is constructed. "Strip all attachments" is actually vague because e-mail was not originally designed with "attachments". Terms such as "attachment" and "message body" are not well defined because a layperson would use a term like "attachment" in a way that does not map unambiguously (or even at all!) to technical details. Then again, the usage might correspond *exactly* to technical usage. Without details, this situation is ambiguous. You may wish to say that in this debate, "attachment" refers to Mailman's user-interface usage of "attachment". In that case, I don't see why you are not already satisfied with Mailman's options (read on).
Asking to "strip all attachments" could involve a number of activities and the correct answer will depend on your circumstances. For example, here are some distinct acitivites which could all be described as "stripping all attachments" in the context of MIME (RFC 2045 and so on): retain only the preamble and the epilogue; strip all MIME entities with 'attachment' disposition; convert messages with Content-Type: text/html to plain text; aggregate all text/plain segments and drop others; retain only the first text/plain segment; and more.
Furthermore, what is "plain text"? HTML is plain text. text/enriched is plain text. From your recent posts, we can rest assured that you want only the text/plain content type (even though others might allow text/enriched and text/html). Mailman gives everyone the ability to make a range of choices. Yahoo, on the other hand, might make its own choice and give it a particular name.
To help solve your problem, I have just created a new list on a host running Mailman 2.1.1. I have subscribed myself and verified that I can send a GIF-format "attachment" through the list. I am now visiting the "Content Filtering" configuration category. I see an option to turn on content filter. I think it needs to be on.
Next, I see an option to remove message attachments that have a matching content type. That doesn't sound like it fits your requirements, so I'll move down the list.
The next option is to remove attachments that don't have a matching type. The default option allows multipart/mixed, multipart/alternative and text/plain. That sounds like exactly what you want, so I leave it unedited.
The next question relates to converting text/html to text/plain. I don't think you need it, but I'll leave it on its default setting anyway (it is turned on).
The next option is the "action". I'll choose "reject", so that I get some feedback when I test this configuration.
I now re-send my GIF test message. My message was not rejected but was instead sent through the list with the GIF removed and my text/plain entities intact. This sounds like what you want.
So basically, Mailman 2.1.1 comes with your desired settings entered by default (other than "turn on content filtering"). If this is not the case, perhaps you can try again to explain your requirements.
In message <3439.65.246.246.82.1059601803.squirrel@www.wingfoot.org> on Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 05:50:03PM -0400, Glenn Sieb wrote:
schuetzen said: Hi Chas..
What I've done on my lists is, under Content Filtering, where it says "Remove message attachments that don't have a matching content type. Leave this field blank to skip this filter test.":
multipart/mixed multipart/alternative text/plain
That seems to strip most all attachments that have tried to be posted to my lists... :)
Oh look...you already received the correct advice! And yet you said:
In message <t8fgiv0uppl2k7teokpj7n5fp7bkoqsq75@4ax.com> on Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 04:59:44PM -0500, schuetzen wrote:
if you read the instruction, you want to remove the two multipart
It is poorly written and confusing but if you turn it around, it says "keep attachments that do have a matching type."
actually, you (I) do not want ANY attachment. PERIOD!!
that is why I do not like this system of content or pass filtering. I simply want to state, PLAIN TEXT only, NO attachments period.
You have clearly misunderstood the documentation and rejected the correct advice that was given to you. If you feel that the English documentation for Mailman is not well written, or you would like the interface written is a different language, you could contribute the necessary changes yourself.