[Mailman-Users] Few questions for the Mailman list...

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 01 Oct 2001 10:31:07 +1000 
AE Somerville <a.somerville at qut.edu.au> wrote:

> I was particulalry interested in: 1. How your software stores and
> accesses the mailing list information (List Members,
> Administrators, Moderators, Members).  

Currently they are stored as a Python streamed object.  The next
version of Mailman implements a plugin and abstraction layer such
that you could remove the subscriber information to an external
source such as an SQL DB, LDAP, or whatever providing you supply the
appropriate plugin (which is fairly simple).

> 2. What command line tools or non-web-broswer methods are
> available to administer the lists.  

There are command line tools to create and remove lists, to process
archives, to add and remove (lists) of members from specific lists,
and to provide low-level Pythonic access to the streamed objects
(with_list).

> 3. What tools are available to make a mass upload of lists members
> and owner/moderator details?  

The subscriber base tools can add and remove members, and can set
(most) config options for individual members (such as
digest/nomail).

> 4. Can we link in authentication (C code) to authenticate to our
> password systems?  

There are hacks in this area for the current version of Mailman.
They are indelicate at best.  The situation under the upcoming 2.1
is much prettier, but then 2.1 is also not-quite-ready.

> 5. Is there a webbased interface for administrator of the mail
> list service.  

Yes.

> 6. I'd also like to know what way the lists are stored...  Are
> they in a flat file/DB/Hash? How's this achieved for your product?

Streamed python objects.

> 7. And even though we can add our own adjustments to the code for
> the purposes of authentication, are there plans for adding support
> for industry supported authentication mechanisms such as Cyrus
> SASL?  <http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/download/sasl/doc/>

Yes, and no.

  Yes, there is (going to be) an abstraction and plugin layer which
  will allow authentication by any means you supply an appropriate
  plugin for (and the plugin interface is pretty simple).

  No, there are no specific plans that I know of for any particular
  auth mechanisms under that abstraction layer other than the
  Mailman defaults.  Such plugins are expected to derive from and be
  contributed by the Mailman community.  Translation: We'd love to
  see your plugin!

-- 
J C Lawrence
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.