Version 16.0 of LISTSERV has several new features and enhancements for the site administrator. This section gives you detailed information about the following new features:
where 'flag' can be either the name of a debug flag or its corresponding hex value. A plus sign turns on the flag, minus turns it off, no sign sets the specified flag and clears all others. The command updates the session debug flags as requested, then displays a summary:
* Debug flags for this session: 00000022
*
* 00000001 TRACE_DIST [Trace DISTRIBUTE processing - OFF]
* 00000002 TRACE_MIME Trace MIME parser
* 00000004 TRACE_LISTS [Trace (a few) list-related functions - OFF]
* 00000008 TRACE_SPAM [Trace spam filter calls - OFF]
* 00000010 TRACE_EMM [Trace Embedded Mail-Merge processor - OFF]
* 00000020 TRACE_DEV Temporary ad hoc tracing for development use
* 00000040 TRACE_FSAV [Trace FSAV calls - OFF]
* 00000080 TRACE_LDAP_CALLS [Trace LDAP library calls - OFF]
* 00000100 TRACE_LDAP_DATA [Trace data obtained from LDAP - OFF]
* 08000000 HOLD_DISTBG [Do not process background DISTRIBUTE jobs - OFF]
* 10000000 HOLD_XB64 [Hold X-B64 jobs instead of processing them - OFF]
* 20000000 KEEP_JOBFILES [Keep successfully processed job files - OFF]
* 40000000 TRACE_TCPGUI [Additional TCPGUI tracing - OFF]
Flags that have not yet been assigned a function will display as RESERVED in the summary and do nothing. The TRACE_DEV flag is used by L-Soft Development to trace various aspects of whatever is being worked on at the time. While TRACE_DEV may be enabled by site maintainers (and in certain cases the support department may request that TRACE_DEV be enabled for debugging purposes), the results will vary depending on the build (and will not be publicly documented for that reason).
Any changes made using the DEBUG FLAGS command are for the current session only (they will be reset when LISTSERV is restarted). For certain purposes it can make sense to have some flags permanently turned on, and the DEBUG_FLAGS site configuration variable remains available for those special cases.
Administrators may now serve users off with the DROP command directly from the Web Interface. To access the Command Interface, click on the
Server Administration or
List Management menu from the Toolbar, and then click
LISTSERV Command.
The optional LDAP_PW_BIND site configuration variable is now available in all LISTSERV 16.0 builds. This variable contains the string to format and use when logging on a user. The default is "%n", which works "out of the box" with Active Directory and, in most cases, with OpenLDAP. For other LDAP implementations, or if a different bind string is required for your local installation, it can be defined in this setting and may use the %u/%h/%s escapes.
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unix: LDAP_PW_BIND_MYSERVER="%n"
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export LDAP_PW_BIND_MYSERVER
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Win: LDAP_PW_BIND_MYSERVER=%n
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Important: The default value for LDAP_PW_BIND is now "%n".
To define using the Web Interface, click on Server Administration, select
Site Configuration, and then finally select
Site Configuration. The Site Configuration wizard opens. Click on the LDAP tab, and then define the
LDAP_PW_BIND setting.
Note: If the
LDAP_PW_BIND setting is not visible on the LDAP tab, you may have to click on the
Show All Variables option at the bottom of the tab.
You can now set the default value for the Mail-Merge= list header keyword using the new DEFAULT_MAIL_MERGE site configuration keyword. This keyword sets the default value for all of the lists on the server.
Set DEFAULT_MAIL_MERGE to
NO to turn off list-based mail-merge, or set it to
YES to turn it on. This configuration variable can be overridden at the list level by
Setting the Mail-Merge List Header Keyword.
To define using the Web Interface, click on Server Administration, select
Site Configuration, and then finally select
Site Configuration. The Site Configuration wizard opens. Click on the SMTP tab, and then define the
DEFAULT_MAIL_MERGE setting.
Note: If the
DEFAULT_MAIL_MERGE setting is not visible on the SMTP tab, you may have to click on the
Show All Variables option at the bottom of the tab.
When creating a new list, you can now select whether or not to enable mail-merge for the list. If you enable mail-merge, the default bottom banner will include an automatically generated one-click unsubscribe link for each subscriber. Without mail-merge, the link will instead lead to the generic subscription management page of the list.
To enable manually, enter the default value of the “Mail-Merge=” list header keyword using the new
DEFAULT_MAIL_MERGE site configuration keyword. The default is
Yes.
When editing the Site Configuration variables through the Web Interface, LISTSERV automatically saves the new settings in a file named
SITECFG.FILE. Settings stored in
SITECFG.FILE take precedence over settings in the legacy
site.cfg (on Windows systems) or
go.user (on Unix systems) files. Configuration options that have not been changed using the Web Interface will continue to be read from
site.cfg or
go.user. This ensures a seamless transition for sites to begin using the Web Interface.
In special cases, if you have edited a configuration setting through the Web Interface and you want to revert back to the old setting in
site.cfg or
go.user, then you can reset this value using the Web Interface.
To reset a configuration variable from the Web Interface, click on the Server Administration menu, click on
Site Configuration, and then select
Site Configuration. The Site Configuration wizard opens. Click on the tab of your choice and then click on the configuration variable that you want to change. The Configuration Variable screen opens. Click on the
[Reset] button. You will be prompted to restart LISTSERV, after which the old setting from
site.cfg or
go.user will take effect again.
The SMTPL.EXE SMTP "listener" service has the ability to submit inbound mail to a third-party spam scanning product. In LISTSERV 16.0, this feature allows sites with significant inbound spam problems to scan and reject spam before it reaches the main LISTSERV process, thus freeing LISTSERV itself to handle legitimate mail.
Note: Although this hook can, in principle, be used with any spam scanning product, all the examples and step-by-step instructions in this section will relate to SpamAssassin, a popular freeware spam filter that can be downloaded from
http://spamassassin.apache.org.
Important: L-Soft did not author SpamAssassin and is unable to correct problems with the SpamAssassin product itself. L-Soft does not make any legal representations or warranties about SpamAssassin. Although L-Soft’s support department will gladly answer questions about the integration of SpamAssassin and SMTPL, we cannot answer questions about SpamAssassin itself.
This section contains step-by-step instructions for configuring LISTSERV to use SpamAssassin using one of the L-Soft supplied scripts. Throughout this section, we will make the following assumptions:
Note: lspamc.exe is slightly different from the
spamc.exe provided for LISTSERV spam scanning.
lspamc.exe should be used for SMTPL spam scanning.
The response must be two numbers as shown above, but the numbers can be different than in the example (they are the SpamAssassin score of the test message). Any other response indicates an error. In that case, make sure that spamd is configured to allow connections from the LISTSERV host.
Download REXX.EXE from L-Soft and place it in the same directory where you saved
lspamc.exe.
Note: SASMTPL.REXX is incompatible with Regina REXX version 3.1 and later. The version of
REXX.EXE downloadable from L-Soft is known to work with the script.
SMTP_SPAM_EXIT=!C:\LISTSERV\MAIN\REXX.EXE C:\LISTSERV\MAIN\SASMTPL.REXX
SMTP_SPAM_THREADS=75
SMTP_SPAM_CHECK=[list of target hostnames to check]
Change the paths in SMTP_SPAM_EXIT to match your local installation. Ensure that the line begins with an exclamation point (!).
Normally, SMTP_SPAM_CHECK may be set to
%MYDOMAIN%. If you host multiple domains on the same LISTSERV server, you will need to list each domain (space-separated).
Note: For the 75 concurrent spam scans configured in the example, 750M-1G of memory will be required. Depending on available resources, you may want to start lower.
The Feedback Loop Auto-Processing reports are no longer specific to AOL since other ISPs can now be included. In addition to this, other changes have been made. See the sections below for specific details.
The SPAM_FEEDBACK_PROBE variable defines the domains for which to enable automatic processing of Spam Feedback Loops. Feedback Loop reports are sent automatically by some ISPs, such as AOL and Yahoo!, to organizations that are on their whitelist. Once configured, LISTSERV automatically parses the reports and implements the actions required by the whitelist agreement. This helps preserve whitelist status and reduce the number of spam complaints from subscribers.
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Create a LISTSERV list dedicated to feedback loop processing. It can be configured as you wish as long as the special addresses from which the spam reports are sent are authorized to post to the list. Test the list carefully to make sure that archiving is working properly and that the list will not send any replies back. Then, add Misc-Options= PROCESS_SPAM_FEEDBACK to the list configuration to activate automatic report processing.
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This ensures that no further mail will be sent to the user and minimizes the risk for further complaints (although experience has shown that people sometimes find old messages in their mailbox days or weeks later, which can lead to a handful of additional spam reports).
To define in the Web Interface, click on Server Administration, select
Site Configuration, and then finally select
Site Configuration. The Site Configuration wizard opens. Click on the Anti-Spam tab, and then define
SPAM_FEEDBACK_PROBE. For example:
The SPAM_FEEDBACK_ACTION variable is now available and documented in the Site Configuration wizard on the Anti-Spam tab. This variable determines what actions to take when LISTSERV receives spam complaints through Feedback Loops.
To define in the Web Interface, click on Server Administration, select
Site Configuration, and then finally select
Site Configuration. The Site Configuration wizard opens. Click on the Anti-Spam tab, and then define
SPAM_FEEDBACK_ACTION.
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DELETE: The user is deleted from all LISTSERV lists.
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EXCLUDE: The user is added to the spam feedback lists with the NOMAIL option.
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SERVEDROP: The user is served off with the DROP option.
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NONE: No action is taken other than logging an entry to the list's change log (if defined).
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LOGALL: An advanced option for customers operating multiple LISTSERV instances, which collects a central copy of all spam reports and forces them to be logged on that instance even if the reports are for another instance.
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In LISTSERV 16.0, it is now possible to exclude subscribers who have complained about spam from your organization. At this time, the exclusion is only allowed via DISTRIBUTE; this does not include administrative messages.
Important: The SPAM_FEEDBACK_EXCLUDE_LIST variable is only available when LISTSERV is in
Expert Mode.
To define in the Web Interface, click on Server Administration, select
Site Configuration, and then finally select
Site Configuration. The Site Configuration wizard opens. Click on the Anti-Spam tab, and define the following:
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SPAM_FEEDBACK_EXCLUDE_LIST – This variable tells LISTSERV to exclude all of the subscribers of the Spam Feedback Loop list in question from future bulk mailings, even if subscribed to a list or targeted for a mailing via LISTSERV Maestro or home-made DISTRIBUTE job or any other channel. This does not blackhole administrative messages; therefore, the users can still receive confirmation cookies necessary to execute commands and so on.
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Note: L-Soft does not recommend defining multiple lists. For maximum performance, this variable is only intended for use with one list. Then, you can ADD anyone that you want to exclude to this list. (Make sure to set the options for this list to NOMAIL.)
For some time, LISTSERV Maestro has incorporated the ability to perform a deliverability evaluation on messages it is used to compose and send. However, this feature required several prerequisites:
Because the first two prerequisites are difficult to implement, few sites use this feature. Therefore, L-Soft has implement a hosted service that will be available at
no charge to customers with maintenance. This feature is enabled when LISTSERV is installed and your current maintenance LAK is applied. Once this is done, there is nothing to configure; it is entirely automatic.
If a SPAM_EXIT is present, by default, both the SPAM_EXIT report and the hosted report are shown. The hosted report can be disabled if it is preferred to show the results of local spam filter instead.
Since LISTSERV 1.8e (13.0), it has been possible to delay execution of DISTRIBUTE jobs until a given time, by use of the JOB card keyword AFTER=. However, this was never an option for regular postings to mailing lists.
This tag, like all other X-LSV tags inserted by LISTSERV, is deleted from the header before being sent to the recipient. The date and time parameters can be specified in any of the formats supported by LISTSERV, except those that contain white space. It is suggested that the format
Important: The value MUST NOT be enclosed in quotes or LISTSERV will not recognize it. Similarly, the value MUST NOT be a standard RFC822 date field. A setting like
Note: This feature requires either a mail client that is capable of adding ad-hoc RFC822 headers into messages or the ability to construct RFC821/822 email messages manually and feed them directly to SMTP for delivery to LISTSERV.
HELOMAIL FROM:<joe.user@example.com>
RCPT TO:<lunch@listserv.example.com>
DATA
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:14:00 -0400
From: joe.user@example.com
To: lunch@listserv.example.com
Subject: Lunchtime!
X-LSVAfter: 2009-10-20 12:00:00
Note: If LISTSERV finds an X-LSVAfter: header in the message that either is blank or does not match any of the standard date/time formats understood by the server, then the following will appear and the message will be processed immediately:
20 Oct 2009 09:26:35 Processing file 0078 from MAILER@LISTSERV.EXAMPLE.COM
>>> Invalid date/time specification in X-LSVAfter: tag - ignored
20 Oct 2009 09:26:35 Processing mail from joe.user@example.com for LUNCH
20 Oct 2009 09:26:35 Message DISTRIBUTEd to 125 recipients.
LISTSERV 16.0 now supports a dynamic query exit to provide support for custom data sources other than LDAP and SQL databases, or to query LDAP or SQL data sources in a specific manner not otherwise supported by LISTSERV. For further details regarding this new exit functionality please refer to the Dynamic Queries section in the
Advanced Topics Manual.
Setting up LISTSERV to authenticate via LDAP with SSL can be challenging when dealing with older versions of Solaris. There are several scenarios that are dependent primarily on the version of Solaris you are running.
Note: Solaris 10 is the most current version of Solaris. Using LDAP with Solaris 10 will not cause any problems.
Do not provide a password. Just type RETURN twice. Verify that you created the right ‘flavor’ of database: cert7 for Solaris 8 and 9, cert8 for Solaris 10. Otherwise you need to start again with the right certutil.
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Obtain the public SSL certificate for the LDAP server you want to connect to. This example assumes you used the standard PEM exchange format (base64-encoded ASCII), there are other formats that may require additional or different switches. We will assume that you have saved the certificate in a file called cert.txt.
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Obtain the public SSL certificate for the LDAP server you want to connect to, in PEM format (ASCII). If you receive the file in a different format, it is probably easier to ask the LDAP server administrator for a PEM file in ASCII than to try and convert it yourself. If you must convert the file, there are too many possible scenarios to cover here, but check the man pages for the openssl command.
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This scenario will generally be unworkable because of certificate incompatibilities introduced by Sun in Solaris 9. Although Sun's LDAP for Solaris 9 requires certificates to be formatted in the older cert7.db format, the certutil utility that ships with Solaris 9 creates cert8.db format files.
Important: We strongly recommend that Solaris 9 users wishing to use LDAP with LISTSERV contact Sun directly for support on this issue. L-Soft is unable to provide support for this issue as it is a problem that only Sun can resolve.
If you do not have a Solaris 8 system available, you could download and install the "Directory Server Resource Kit 5.2.1" from Sun, and install it in a temporary directory.
Important: If you install the Directory Server Resource Kit 5.2.1 under Solaris 9, then you
must NOT overwrite anything that came with your Solaris 9 system.
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Confirm that you have the ‘certutil’ utility on your system AND that it operates in the old cert7.db format. This utility does not come pre-installed and is unlikely to be in root’s default path. This would be something you or a colleague installed manually at some point, presumably in /usr/local/bin, but it could be elsewhere.
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