Synchronet ListServer Installation/Configuration
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$Id: listserver.txt,v 1.1 2004/10/23 03:47:15 rswindell Exp $

Overview
--------
The Synchronet ListServer (exec/listserver.js) allows Internet e-mail clients
to subscribe and (optionally) contribute messages to your local message bases
using nothing but a standard Internet mail client (e.g. Outlook/OE, Eudora,
Pine, etc.).


Requirements
------------
The Synchronet ListServer requires Synchronet v3.12 or later.


How it works
------------
The Synchronet ListServer works much like traditional Internet mailing list
severs, such as "Majordomo" and "Listserv".

The user of an Internet e-mail client "subscribes" to one of your mailing
lists by sending an e-mail message to the address of your ListServer
(typically "listserver@yourbbs.com"). In the body of the message (or
optionally, the subject), the line "subscribe listname" must exist,
where "listname" is the name of one of your mailing lists (as configured
in your ctrl/listserver.ini file, described later).

Once subscribed, the user will automatically receive, in their mailbox,
any messages posted in the message area (sub-board) corresponding to the
mailing list. A user may unsubscribe from the mailing list by the same
means but using the command "unsubscribe listname".

The ListServer will respond to other "control messages" like these. A
control message of "help" will return a list of valid commands to the
requesting client's mailbox.


Submissions
-----------
Writable mailing lists allow the user to submit messages to the list by
sending e-mail messages addressed to "listname@yourbbs.com". Submissions
are automatically posted to the message area (sub-board) associated with
the mailing list and forwarded to all mailing list subscribers.


Configuration
-------------
1. If you haven't already, create the message areas (sub-boards) in SCFG that
   you want to make available as mailing lists. Be sure to make a note
   of the configured "internal code" associated with each sub-board you are
   going to associate with a list.

2. Edit your ctrl/listserver.ini file, creating a separate section for
   each mailing list and specifying the "internal code" of the associated
   sub-board using the "sub" key. See the stock ctrl/listserver.ini for an
   example.

   If you wish to allow control commands in the subject of messages addressed
   to the ListServer, set "SubjectCommand = true" in the "Global Settings"
   portion of the file.

   Set "disabled = false" in the "Global Settings" portion of the file to
   enable the ListServer.

3. Edit your ctrl/mailproc.ini file, adding (if you don't have it already)
   the following section:

   [listserver.js]
       to = listserver, listserv
       passthru = false

   Include in the "to" value the names of any writable (not readonly) lists
   from your listserver.ini file. Be sure to separate the names with commas.

4. Add the command-line of "?listserver" as a timed-event in SCFG->External
   Programs->Timed Events. This is necessary for the distribution of 
   messages posted to sub-boards associated with mailing lists.

5. Recycle your mail server, if it didn't automatically recycle after saving
   your changes in SCFG in step 4. This is required to re-load your modified
   ctrl/mailproc.ini file into the mail server.


Maintenance
-----------
The list of subscribers is kept in the file data/subs/code.list.sub, where 
"code" is the sub-board's internal code. There is currently no mechanism for
removing subscribers with bad e-mail addresses, but there will be in the
future.

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