[Mailman-Users] Large lists and Postfix

[Dave Sill]

bruce at hams.com wrote:

>Simply because the web interface is excellent, and it allows the user
>to do most of their own management easily,

I agree that mailman's web interface is excellent. And given the
choice between an MLM with an e-mail only interface, and one with a
good web interface, too, I'd usually prefer the latter. Unfortunately,
it's not always practical for the list server to be co-located with a
web server.

For example, we have two list servers: one for internal use, and one
for internal+external use. The internal server happens to also be our
main internal web server. (Yay!) But implementing new CGI's on this
system is an exercise in frustration. First you have to request an
account on the development system. Then you have to implement and test
the CGI on the development system using a CGI wrapper. If you need
something python installed on both the development and production
systems, that's additional work and delay. (Boo!)

The public list server is also an FTP and netnews server, but it's not
a web server. It's already got its hands full, so I'm not keen to run
a web server there too, but even if I did, I'd have to essentially get
a license to run it. More work, paperwork, and delay.

So for my immediate need, the web interface is not important. The MLM
has to "win" on the basis of its e-mail interface alone.

>and the confirmation system
>avoids problems with malicious subscription.

Majordomo (optionally) and ezmlm (automatically) do this, too. I'm
sure listar does, too. This is a must-have feature, these days.

>Users don't in general
>want to bother the manager if they can solve their own problem with a
>button click. Yes, I know other list servers have these features as
>optional packages, but in Mailman they are well-integrated.

My qmail+majordomo+bounceman set-up requires *very* little owner
intervention. The major remaining problem area is people who can't
remember their subscription address and therefore can't unsubscribe.
Does Mailman have any better way of handling this? That doesn't
require the use of the web interface?

>Mailman seems to have the best features.  I really like the way that
>Mailman figures out what host URL it's being called from and presents the
>appropriate list choices for that URL. I have the same mailman instance
>running on several virtual web sites, and it does not display the lists
>of one virtual site when called with another virtual site's host name.

Virtual list servers aren't a plus me at the moment.

>Ezmlm is too minimal.

Are you talking about ezmlm, or ezmlm-idx? Plain old ezmlm is pretty
minimal, but the idx package makes it pretty complete--and practically
everyone running ezmlm is using ezmlm-idx. It has no web interface,
but I like the way it does some things, like moderated lists,
especially with multiple moderators.

-Dave