Chapter Seven - Email Manager and Email Lists

MAIL MANAGER:

You can access your Mail Manager by going to your Control Panel:

http://www.yourdomainname.com:2082

Inside this area you can setup all of your email items...like auto-responders, forwarded mail, and pop accounts.

Once you've accessed your Control Panel, click on Mail Manager and then click on the email account you wish to edit. This area is self-explanatory.

We've gone into more detail for the Mail Lists below.
 

MAIL LISTS

To set up a new mailing list?

(1) Go to your mail manager http://yourdomain.com:2082
(2) Create a list in Mail Manager by clicking on "New List".
(3) Add the name of the list. You'll get a message giving you instructions, repeated below.
(4) Click "edit list" and you're asked to add the maintainer, password, and max # e-mails archived.

- The maintainer is the e-mail of the person in charge of the list
- The password is the list password
- Max # e-mails archived is the number of the most recent "back-issues" to be saved, and sent when someone requests the most recent e-mails sent to your mailing list.

How do I subscribe to a list?

From email:

To subscribe to the mailinglist, simply send a message with the word "subscribe" in the Subject: field to the -request address of that list.

To: testlist-request@domainname.com
Subject: subscribe

To subscribe to the digest:

A digest sends all messages at once, in one big message, rather than sending each one individually. To subscribe the digest, simply send a message with the word "subscribe" in the Subject: field to the following address.

To: testlist-d-request@domainname.com
Subject: subscribe

How do I send an email to the list?

To send email to the mailinglist, write to the following address:

To: testlist@domainname.com

How do I unsubscribe to a list?

To unsubscribe from the mailinglist, simply send a message with the word "unsubscribe" in the Subject: field to the -request address of that list.

To: testlist-request@domainname.com
Subject: unsubscribe

To unsubscribe from the digest:

To unsubscribe from the digest, write an e-mail like this.

To: testlist-d-request@domainname.com
Subject: unsubscribe

You can get to the Mailing List Manager by selecting the list from under 'Edit List' in the Mail Manager, then selecting 'Mailing List Manager'. You will need to know the Maintainer email and password to administer the list. The results of the commands will be sent to the list maintainer's email address.

I would like to set up a newsletter. Can I get SmartList to do this?

Yes! When you use SmartList to send out an electronic newsletter, you limit the submissions accepted to yourself, and tell SmartList not to accept "foreign" submissions. Anyone who signs up will still receive the list but now cannot send to it. If you want all your lists to be newsletters, you can skip the delink step. If you're not sure, go ahead and delink this one.

I already have a list of addresses for my mailing list. How can I subscribe the entire list?

The 'dist' file is the distribution list -- the list of recipients. To add a pre-existing list of recipients, copy it into the dist file:

/home/username/domainname-mail/listname/dist

You can add a short list by hand or by cut-and-paste. For a really long list, you may want to download the dist file, edit it using a word processing program, save it as text or ASCII, and then upload the edited file.

The following conditions apply:

- One subscriber per line
- Empty lines are allowed
- The mail address of the subscriber must be the first word on the line
- Comments may follow the address (but separated from the address by at least one whitespace character)
-Everything preceding the line containing: "Only addresses below this line can be automatically removed" is write-protected from changes (i.e. these addresses can never be automatically/accidentally unsubscribed)
- If the line: "Only addresses below this line can be automatically removed" is not present at all, automatic unsubscriptions to this list are impossible
- New subscribers will always appear on the line immediately following the last filled entry in the dist file.

Some sample entries (the preferred format):

joe@some.where joe@some.where (some comment) joe@some.where (some comment) (some more comments) Depreciated, but allowed:

<joe@some.where>
<joe@some.where> some comment
<joe@some.where> (some comment)

Not allowed:

(some comment) joe@some.where
some comment <joe@some.where>

Note: adding to the dist file for a list automatically adds to the accept file as well, unless you have turned off foreign submissions.

Where can I get more information about SmartList?

Smart List FAQ
Smart List Archives