[Mailman-Users] RE: Newbie Question -- Attachments (again)

[Newman, Linda (newmanld)]

Follow-up to my earlier question (below).

I went back and put back in the defaults for "Remove message attachments
that don't have a matching content type."  These are now set to:
    multipart/mixed
    multipart/alternative
    text/plain

Attachments such as word documents and pdf documents are still being
rejected, which I'm pleased about.  HTML-formatted messages are now being
converted to plain text (despite answering that question 'No' -- see below),
and this is better than the messages being rejected.  Messages that have
attachments but also have remaining plain text parts are now being sent to
the list without the attachment, instead of being rejected completely, so
this is better.  I'm left wondering:

1) What kind of attachments are allowed by 'multipart/mixed' and
'multipart/alternative'?

2) Why are html formatted messages still translated to plain text even
though I've answered 'No' to the option "Should Mailman convert text/html
parts to plain text?"

Again, any answers or information are appreciated.

-- Linda Newman

>  -----Original Message-----
> From: 	Newman, Linda (newmanld)  
> Sent:	Friday, October 15, 2004 1:26 PM
> To:	'mailman-users at python.org'
> Subject:	Newbie Question -- Attachments (again)
> 
> I have read through the FAQ and tried to locate every piece of information
> I could about MIME types and attachments, esp. reading 4.39, and I'm still
> confused, so am hoping that others can provide some simple clarification.
> 
> What I'd like to do:
>    1) Prevent all attachments from going through.  (Note that if my
> settings below are too broad and will result in rejecting messages that
> aren't really attachments, let me know.)
>    2) Accept html, or rich text format formatted messages without
> translating them to plain text.  However, if this means that other formats
> such as pdf, word, etc., would also have to be accepted, than I'd give up
> on html.
>    3) Send a notice automatically to a sender if their attachment has been
> rejected.
>    4) Send the remaining plain text part of the message to the list
> without the attachment.
> 
> My current 'Content Filtering' options (see below) are rejecting
> attachments and html-formatted messages.   The entire message is rejected
> -- even if there are remaining plain text parts.  RTF formatted messages
> are, however, converted to plain text.  No notice of a rejection is sent
> to the poster, so I've configured the last option to send the message to
> the e-list owner, so that the owner could manually notify users.
> 
> Note that I don't seem to have access to the unix shell.
> 
> My current list Content Filtering options are as follows:
> 
> Should Mailman filter the content of list traffic according to the
> settings below?   -- Yes
> 
> Remove message attachments that have a matching content type.  <none
> listed>
> Remove message attachments that don't have a matching content type.  --
> I've listed two types -- text/plain  <and, on a separate line> text/html
> Should Mailman convert text/html parts to plain text?	No
> Action to take when a message matches the content filtering rules.
> Forward to List Owner
> Thank you for any clarification!
> 
> 
>   
>