[Mailman-Users] Admin commands via email

[Jeff Barger]

On Jul 6, 2004, at 5:27 PM, malgosia askanas (staff) wrote:

> Brad Knowles wrote:
>
>>>  Hope that helps to explain why an administrative email interface can
>>>  be useful.
>
>> There's no question that an e-mail interface can be useful.  The
>> value of this was recognized a long time ago.  Mailman does already
>> include an e-mail interface.
>
> I am sorry if I am being really dense; but what _is_ the 
> administrative email
> interface to Mailman?  For example, how _can_ a list administrator 
> unsub
> a bunch of listmembers via email?  I cannot for the world of me find 
> any
> documentation on this.

Send 'help' to the list -request address. You'll receive the command 
list back.

> I am in the process of deciding whether to move a fairly large 
> list-hosting
> operation from majordomo to Mailman.  Although most of our listowners 
> use
> exclusively MajorCool, there are a few -- some with very large lists 
> -- who
> do all their subscription and unsubscription operations via email.  I 
> want to
> be able to tell them how they can do this in Mailman, but I haven't 
> been able
> to find out.  Yet I see these hope-arousing little hints, such as 
> Brad's above,
> that it can be done...

I don't think it can as distributed. Looking through cmd_subscribe and 
cmd_unsubscribe I don't see anything specific for administrators. That 
said, it shouldn't be too hard to add sub and unsub admin functions 
though, and cmd_who should provide the clues to build them.

Actually, I'm kind of surprised no one's done this. If I get some time 
over the next few days I might take a stab at it.


-Jeff