[Mailman-Users] Operating mailman across a mail gateway for inboundmail.

[Oscar Hodgson]

Mark, Grant ... thank you.

Duh.  mailertable on the mail gateway machine would be the solution,
eh?.  Haven't used that feature previously.  (Yea, this was really a
sendmail question from the outset ..).

So here's a bit more detail (names are changed).  We're a sub-domain
in the organization.  The mail gateway is mailhost.dept.example.com.

All machines in dept.example.com have MX records pointing to mailhost.
Client sendmail.mc files include "define(`SMART_HOST',
`mailhost$?m.$m$.') define(`MAIL_HUB', `mailhost$?m.$m$.')".

The intent is to run Mailman on 'mailman.dept.example.com'.  'mailman'
relays outbound through local sendmail with the standard client
sendmail.mc.  Web access to 'mailman' is available through the VPN.

Mailman lists should be addressable at the local sub-domain, such as
'userlist at dept.example.com'.  Getting mail from 'mailhost' to 'mailman'
was puzzling me ...

So I reckon the solution is that mailhost gets:

.. an alias entry (or perhaps a virtualusertable entry) that points
'userlist' to 'userlist at mailman.dept.example.com'.

... a mailertable entry of 'mailman.dept.example.com  
smtp:mailman.dept.example.com'.

And the usual mailhost anti-spam stuff will still work (I think ..).

Thanks for your help.

Oscar.

On Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:28:27 -0500, Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net> wrote:

> Oscar Hodgson wrote:
>>
>> I'm considering Mailman as an alternative.  High number of groups, small
>> number of users, used for internal groups, no interest / need for public
>> discussion groups.  This is about managing our business, not  
>> communicating
>> with the world (although some of our users forward internal mail to
>> external SMTP servers ...).
>>
>> Mailman docs seem to be oriented towards a direct connection to the
>> internet for external mail.
>
>
> Mailman is typically installed on a machine with an MTA and a web
> server. The MTA handles inbound and outbound mail possibly receiving
> and/or sending via other relays. It is difficult to administer Mailman
> lists without the web interface.
>
>
>> We've got a single opening in the firewall for SMTP (inbound and
>> outbound), and that's fine by me.  Having Mailman running on the mail
>> server (sendmail) is not a viable option ... but having all mail that
>> addressed to lists delivered to mboxes on the gateway that are
>> periodically (10 mins?) retrieved via POP and fed into Mailman would be  
>> a
>> viable option (but I'm open to suggestions).
>
>
> This can be done via something like fetchmail on the Mailman server, or
> you could have an MTA installed on the Mailman server and arrange for
> the mail server to relay list mail to the Mailman server via SMTP. The
> latter approach is simplest if you have a dedicated subdomain for
> Mailman lists. Then you don't have to touch the mail server when
> creating or deleting Mailman lists.
>
>
>> There's no split DNS here,
>> the MX for Mailman would presumably be the external MX host.  When  
>> Mailman
>> needs to distribute externally, outbound mail would go across the  
>> external
>> gateway.
>
>
> This part is doable by telling Mailman to use the mail server directly
> for outgoing SMTP or possibly by relaying via a local MTA. It is not
> clear to me how internal mail would be routed from the Mailman server
> to the recipients, so I don't know which might be a more suitable
> solution.