[Mailman-Developers] PHP Wrappers?

[Ian Eiloart]

On 22 Nov 2005, at 06:14, Brad Knowles wrote:

> At 2:53 PM +0900 2005-11-22, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>
>>>>>>>  "Brad" == Brad Knowles <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org> writes:
>>
>>      Brad> 	Show me a single open data format that all MTAs
>>      Brad> understand. Hell, there aren't many file formats that they
>>      Brad> all understand.
>>
>>  C'mon, Brad, don't let the perfect be the enemy of all improvement.
>>
>>  For access to the ACL database, we really need only to consider two
>>  MTAs (at most): Exim and Postfix.
>
> 	You have to give the MTA direct access to the internal filters of  
> Mailman in some sense.  I don't think we can restrict ourselves to  
> just these two MTAs.
>
> 	Moreover, who owns this code?  It crosses the boundary between  
> Mailman and the MTAs -- do we have to continue to track their  
> development ad infinitum?  Do we have to patch their code?

No, I don't seem to be getting this across. All Mailman needs to do  
is use some kind of storage that lets the MTA have a chance of  
getting at the data. Then it's up to the MTA coders to do it.

Now, for Exim, nothing needs to be done by the coders. Exim is  
flexible enough that it can be configured to read lists of addresses,  
domains, regular expressions from almost any kind of SQL, LDAP or  
flat file database that you care to use.



>>                                     Sendmail has milters for this
>>  purpose; you don't need to do surgery on sendmail itself, just
>>  configure the mailman-acl milter.
>
> 	Mailman-acl milter?  This is the first I've heard of it.  Is this  
> a new thing?  Who maintains this code?

We're talking about Mailman 3 here.

>>  The point is that if Mailman does a reasonable job of specifying
>>  access to a database of list ACLs, people can and will write  
>> adapters
>>  for their drug of choice.  Other MLMs will follow the Mailman  
>> spec if
>>  it's decent and we get there first.  The whole Internet wins.
>
> 	Okay, I can see Mailman providing a single, hopefully reasonably  
> well-specified specification, and letting everyone else adapt.  
> That's a far cry from what Ian was talking about.


No, it's exactly what I was saying.

>>  The ACL format is a much tougher requirement, and will require a lot
>>  of thought.  Do we want to specify archive ACLs in the same  
>> database?
>>  How do we condition access on the various authentication methods  
>> that
>>  users may use?  "Like regular expressions" means exactly what?  Etc,
>>  etc.
>>
>>  Again, if we specify and mostly implement such an interface well,  
>> the
>>  users will come and they'll make their other tools work with it.
>
> 	I'm willing to go that route.  But you do seem to agree with me  
> that this problem is going to be a lot tougher to solve than Ian  
> implies, yes?
>

No, you've evidently completely misunderstood me. All I do want is  
for Mailman to use *exactly* the same mechanisms for sender ACLs that  
it does for rosters. If that's LDAP, that's fine. If it's SQL, that's  
fine. If it's flat files, that's fine.


-- 
Ian Eiloart
Postmaster,
IT Services
University of Sussex

Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Windows Can Be  
Dangerous To Your Health
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4405042.stm>