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Mailman & FUDforum [message #28067] Mon, 10 October 2005 04:54 Go to next message
Hurry   India
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Greetings! My FUDForum and Mailman mailing list are up and running. Now I wanted a two way mailing list functionality. But I don't know how to pipe or link them for the two way communication. I am on a shared server where MailMan has been installed at the root. I can always ask the hosts to change something in Mailman mailing list configuration files if required.

Can you please please tell me what do I do? Which file or settings of Mailman or FUDforum do I have change or what do I have to add in which file for piping it to fudforum?

Though this is a question from a complete novice, I will be very obliged and grateful to you if anyone can help me by posting a clear step by step process to link mailman with fudforum. This will also help all users of FUDforum in the present and future since this question has been asked many times but not yet replied to properly.

I have one more question regarding fudforum and mailman:

(1) In Mailman, if they choose a daily digest option, will those who subscribe for a daily digest receive all the forum posts in one email as a daily digest? If yes, then can they reply to individual forum threads through this daily digest email? Or do they necessarily need to be subscribe to individual messages to reply back which will get posted on the forum?

Thanks and hoping for help!

[Updated on: Mon, 10 October 2005 14:43]

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Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28079 is a reply to message #28067] Mon, 10 October 2005 15:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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FUDforum does not need anything special to send messages BACK to the list, it uses regular e-mail functionality for that. To import messages you need to use some mechanism.

(cron job, procmail, pop3 util, imap) to pipe each mailing list message to the forum's import script maillist.php

You don't actually link mailman or whatever mailing list software that you are using with the forum.

If forum posts are synched to the mailing list, they'd be part of the digest.


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Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28081 is a reply to message #28079] Mon, 10 October 2005 15:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hurry   India
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Ilia wrote on Mon, 10 October 2005 20:39

FUDforum
(cron job, procmail, pop3 util, imap) to pipe each mailing list message to the forum's import script maillist.php


The only thing, I think, which the pop3 util cannot do is to reply by email to a thread. Or is that also possible? If so how?

Quote:

If forum posts are synched to the mailing list, they'd be part of the digest.


Can you kindly consider adding a very useful feature of a daily digest email for the subscribe button of each forum with full posts? In this daily digest email, each full post can have a Reply button at the bottom of it just like the individual post subscription emails. This feature is quite important for high traffic forums in which there are lots of posts within one day. This will enable members to receive a daily digest and then reply back to any post which they desire simply by clicking Reply in their email client. I think this would be really cool. Please please do consider it. Let us have a poll if required. Thanks.

[Updated on: Mon, 10 October 2005 15:23]

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Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28089 is a reply to message #28067] Mon, 10 October 2005 20:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
davidgordon is currently offline  davidgordon   United Kingdom
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Hurry wrote on Mon, 10 October 2005 00:54



Can you please please tell me what do I do? Which file or settings of Mailman or FUDforum do I have change or what do I have to add in which file for piping it to fudforum?


I have a working Mailman & FUDForum setup up and running. From memory here's what you need to do. This does assume that both your Mailman mailing list and FUDForum board ane installed and running correctly (albeit independently at the moment!)


In your FF Admin Control Panel select 'Mailing List Manager' (under 'Forum Management')

Enter the email address of your mailing list and select the forum you want messages to appear in. So for example if your mailing list is called Test and its address is <test(at)domain(dot)tld> you might want messages to appear in the Test forum on your board.

Click the "Update Mailing List Rule" - you may find you are returned to a blank form so go to the bottom of the form to see your rule which will be something like

test(at)domain(dot)tld	TestForum 	/usr/local/home/httpd/vhtdocs/domain.tld/FUDforum/scripts/maillist.php 1 	


Now in your Mailman list admin page create a new member. I created the member FUDForum-Test(at)domain(dot)tld and have this email address receive imdividual messages but _important_ NOT to receive monthy password reminders from Mailman.

Now in your mailserver you (depending on your exact setup) need the following.

In virtusertable

fudforum-test(at)domain(dot)tld fudforum-test


and in aliases

FUDForum-test:     "|/usr/local/home/httpd/vhtdocs/domain.tld/FUDforum/scripts/maillist.php 1"



So now you should have a setup where when a message is sent to your Mailman list the 'subscriber' fudforum-test(at)domain(dot)tld routes posts to the FUDForum maillist.php import script and the post appears on the forum.

When messages are posted to the forum FUDForum will mail them to your Mailman list address. NOTE: you will need to ensure forum users are members of your Mailman list if you have 'member only' posting enabled for your list.

I hpe that's clear. Of course you may have a different mailserver... For example I am using Exim. If you have Sendmail it is possible to pipe to two destinations so you can have

test:              "|/home/mailman/mail/mailman post test" "|/usr/local/home/httpd/vhtdocs/domain.tld/FUDforum/scripts/maillist.php 1"


in your alias table

Quote:


(1) In Mailman, if they choose a daily digest option, will those who subscribe for a daily digest receive all the forum posts in one email as a daily digest? If yes, then can they reply to individual forum threads through this daily digest email? Or do they necessarily need to be subscribe to individual messages to reply back which will get posted on the forum?



Digest subscribers just need to change the subject line and reply. That email will be sent to all the Mailman list subscribers, posted to the forum and added to the digest in the usual way.

Hope that helps!

DG
Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28092 is a reply to message #28089] Tue, 11 October 2005 05:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hurry   India
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Thans so much David for your reply. Just need some further clarifications and I think I can do it.

davidgordon wrote on Tue, 11 October 2005 02:24



Now in your mailserver you (depending on your exact setup) need the following.

In virtusertable

fudforum-test(at)domain(dot)tld fudforum-test



I am on a shared cpanel server with Mailman meing installed by the host at the root I think. Is virtusertable a file or a table in mysql? If it is file, what is the extension and path where it is found. Same question for aliases below.

Quote:

and in aliases

FUDForum-test:     "|/usr/local/home/httpd/vhtdocs/domain.tld/FUDforum/scripts/maillist.php 1"



The only difference I find in the code is that in the above aliases code, you have used "FUDForum-test:" with FUD caps and above that in the virtusertable code you have used "fudforum-test" with fud small. Should I do the same or both should be same?

Quote:

I hope that's clear. Of course you may have a different mailserver... For example I am using Exim. If you have Sendmail it is possible to pipe to two destinations so you can have

test:              "|/home/mailman/mail/mailman post test" "|/usr/local/home/httpd/vhtdocs/domain.tld/FUDforum/scripts/maillist.php 1"


in your alias table


Do you I need to pipe these two destinations in the alias table if I make the above two changes and do I need make the above two changes if I make this pipe to two destinations in the alias table. Can you please tell me where this alias table can be found and the filename if any? I am really sorry as I am a total novice.
Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28094 is a reply to message #28092] Tue, 11 October 2005 07:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
davidgordon is currently offline  davidgordon   United Kingdom
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Hurry wrote on Tue, 11 October 2005 01:20


I am on a shared cpanel server with Mailman meing installed by the host at the root I think. Is virtusertable a file or a table in mysql? If it is file, what is the extension and path where it is found. Same question for aliases below.



virtusertable is a mailserver configuration file. Mine is in
/usr/local/etc/mail

along with the alias file. However this is my Exim setup, yours may be different. I don't know what difference cPanel may make. Best ask your host for the exact locations on your server.

Quote:

you have used "FUDForum-test:" with FUD caps and above that in the virtusertable code you have used "fudforum-test" with fud small. Should I do the same or both should be same?


Yes! I noticed that. Best to stick to one or the other really. I'm going to change mine to lower case for consistancy.

Quote:

Do you I need to pipe these two destinations in the alias table if I make the above two changes and do I need make the above two changes if I make this pipe to two destinations in the alias table. Can you please tell me where this alias table can be found and the filename if any? I am really sorry as I am a total novice.


No, I was just showing you two differnt ways of doing this. I think my current way of using a special subscriber to send messages it receives from Mailman on to FUDForum is the best way. You could have one line in your alias file piping to Mailman and FUDForum - in this case just add the pipe to the end of the current Mailman pipe which will look something like...

test:    "|/home/mailman/mail/mailman post test"


However this means that anyone who is not a member of your (say) member only list and who knows its address will be able to post messages directly to your forum. That's why I prefer and use my first option of having a subscriber which sends messages which have already passed through Mailman to the forum. It means any subscription checks have been done by Mailman and only members can post. No spam!

Any help?

--
DG
Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28107 is a reply to message #28094] Tue, 11 October 2005 15:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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When the forum sends messages back to ML on behalf of the users it does it from the e-mail address those users have registered under. This achieves your goal of mailman validation of senders.

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Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28133 is a reply to message #28067] Wed, 12 October 2005 08:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hurry   India
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Thanks David and Ilia. My forum will be moderated so I don't mind trying out the second option also. In that way any one can send their posts for approval for posting on the forum by email.

(1) But still if I use the second option, will I have to add all the forum members as members to my mailman list to receive the posts which are posted on the forum from the forum web interface? I guess I will have to if they have to receive the forums posts by email and be able to reply to them by email.

(2) Another question which arises is that will not the members receive an email twice if it is sent by email to the mailman mailing list address? Let me explain. When someone sends an email to the mailing list, it will be sent to all mailing list subscribers and also it will be piped and posted to the forum. And again the forum will send that same message by email to the mailing list address as it synchronized which leads to everyone receiving the same message twice. Or does FUDforum identify the messages coming in from the mailing list and does not resend them to the mailing list? This means that FUDforum sends only the messages posted through the web to the mailing list. Is my understanding correct on this issue?

(3) How to eliminate all the long long headers which come in a typical mailman list message? I saw a script on this forum which does it when postfix is being used instead of sendmail and I have sendmail. I saw the option of removing the headers and footers in the MLM tab in FUDforum but I can't figure out what commands to add there even after reading the documentation etc.

(4)
Quote:

Digest subscribers just need to change the subject line and reply. That email will be sent to all the Mailman list subscribers, posted to the forum and added to the digest in the usual way.


They have change the subject line to what? To the subject of a particular thread? How will the forum know which thread to post their reply to as they are replying to the digest email which contains of messages from so many different threads?

(5) Just a little clarification before I write to my host about how to access the two files. Where exactly should I add these lines in virtusertable and aliases files? On the top, bottom or anywhere in these files? Also if I choose the second option, then will I have to modify only the aliases file and not the virtusertable or I have add in both even for the second option?

(6) Since I am on a shared hosting and if my host agrees to change these files, will it affect the other sites using mailman mailing lists on the same server on which my site is hosted? Or can the changes be done on only my part of configuration files of mailman? Sorry for being such a novice.

(7) I know Ilia does not want to do it, but I really wish FUDforum would have integrated a full-fledged two way mailing list like Mailgust forum has. It would undoubtedly become the best and the most complete forum software in the world. Mailgust is so easy and simple to use with no need to maintain your subscribers in two different places. Any email you send to the forum address gets posted on the forum and all forum members receive it with an unsubscribe link at the bottom. It has moderation too like FUDforum. These emails are quite clean and not like mailiman emails. And the forum members can also reply to that email and it gets posted as a reply to that thread. The only problem is that again Mailgust does not have a daily digest subscription option and those who subscribe will have to receive individual emails but they can reply to them. The other problems with mailgust are that it does not have a RSS feed or a convertor from phpbb or an ability to delete or move posts etc.so it did not serve my purpose fully. So I hope going through this process of adding mailman to FUDforum and have subscribers in both places will solve this problem for me.

Awaiting your kind response and thanks for all the info so far.

[Updated on: Wed, 12 October 2005 08:31]

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Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28140 is a reply to message #28133] Wed, 12 October 2005 13:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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The forum can identify existing messages so that they are not syncronized to the mailing list twice.

The FUDforum regex is intended for mangling of the message body, it does nothing for the headers. Not that those matter, since message headers are not being displayed.



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Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28152 is a reply to message #28067] Wed, 12 October 2005 15:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hurry   India
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Quote:

FUDForum-test: "|/usr/local/home/httpd/vhtdocs/domain.tld/FUDforum/scripts/maillist.php 1"


I think this is the code for the ensim hosting panel. Will it like this for the cpanel:

FUDForum-test:     "|/usr/local/home/username/public_html/FUDforum/scripts/maillist.php 1"


Please kindly help me if someone has cpanel experience and confirm the above code. I need to confirm this before emailing my hosts.
Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28162 is a reply to message #28067] Wed, 12 October 2005 19:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hurry   India
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My mailman mailing list email is list(at)mydomain(dot)com and I created an email subscriber and alias post(at)mydomain(dot)com and put a pipe from this email to maillist.php . All settings done in MLM too. But only one way is working. Posts on the forum's web interface are going to the mailing list but post to the mailing list are going only to the mailing list addresses but not being posted on the forum. Any clues or suggestions will be very greatly appreciated.

Actually I have tried almost all the pop3 scripts in this forum like popfud.php getlists.php popfudx.php and fudmail.php etc. to pipe a pop3 account and get the emails imported to the forum but it is constantly giving a pop3 account acesss error: invalid server, username or password or cannot connect to pop3 account error.

So anyways now I have kindly requested my hosts to try the second option of directly piping both the destinations fudforum and mailman simultaneously. I am keeping my fingers crossed and am just hoping this will work. But if anyone can give a clue why the first option is not working, please do help.
Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28171 is a reply to message #28162] Wed, 12 October 2005 21:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Posts to the forum from ML would only go in if there is something piping the messages to maillist.php

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Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28174 is a reply to message #28171] Wed, 12 October 2005 21:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hurry   India
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Ilia wrote on Thu, 13 October 2005 02:46

Posts to the forum from ML would only go in if there is something piping the messages to maillist.php


How to check this? Is there any error log for this piping? Because I have the set up the aliases as described by David whose setup is working fine. Crying or Very Sad
Re: Mailman & FUDforum [message #28175 is a reply to message #28174] Wed, 12 October 2005 22:23 Go to previous message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Well, assuming the script is being called it'd write any errors to errors/.mlist directory.

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