Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Mike Grice]

Hey all,

It would be really cool if the list owner could send an email to:

listname+list@my.domain.tld

... to get a list of current subscribers.  Does anyone think this is
worth implementing?

Cheers
Mike
-- 
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Vegard Svanberg]

* Mike Grice <incubus@ice-breaker.net> [2005-04-11 18:31]:

> It would be really cool if the list owner could send an email to:
> 
> listname+list@my.domain.tld

I've also had customers asking for that. Another cool thing would be if
the list owner could do some sort of simple list management by email,
for instance (un)subscribing people. That feature could optionally
support batch too, so that the admin could hammer down an email like:

subscribe john@doe.invalid
unsubscribe john@foo.invalid
subscribe donna@boo.invalid
subscribe ralph@foobar.invalid

Adding a few such features would totally eliminate the need for a web
interface and still allow the admin full control of his mailing list
without actually needing prompt access to the machine running mlmmj.

-- 
Vegard Svanberg <vegard@svanberg.no> [*Takapa@IRC (EFnet)]

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Jakob Hirsch]

Vegard Svanberg wrote:

>>It would be really cool if the list owner could send an email to:
>>listname+list@my.domain.tld
> I've also had customers asking for that. Another cool thing would be if
> the list owner could do some sort of simple list management by email,

should be not too hard to implement, but it has to be password- or
challange/response-protected.

it sounds nice, but are there really so many who want to use this? I
thought there are mainly the two extremes shell access and web interface.

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Mike Grice]

On Mon, 2005-04-11 at 20:14 +0200, Jakob Hirsch wrote:
> Vegard Svanberg wrote:
> 
> >>It would be really cool if the list owner could send an email to:
> >>listname+list@my.domain.tld
> > I've also had customers asking for that. Another cool thing would be if
> > the list owner could do some sort of simple list management by email,
> 
> should be not too hard to implement, but it has to be password- or
> challange/response-protected.

The thing is, (IIRC) ezmlm lets you do this.  You don't need to password
it because it's only allowed to be requested by the owner, and the reply
goes back to the configured owner address.

> it sounds nice, but are there really so many who want to use this? I
> thought there are mainly the two extremes shell access and web interface.

Nope, there are some people accustomed to the ezmlm
listname-list@my.domain.tld - and it's getting rid of ezmlm that I'm
trying to do.

I could write a wrapper around ezmlm-list, but to be honest, if the
functionality is there why not integrate it?  It's another nail in the
coffin of ezmlm, for a start.

Mike
-- 
'Cause all we got is rhythm and timin' ...

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Jakob Hirsch]

Mike Grice wrote:

>>should be not too hard to implement, but it has to be password- or
>>challange/response-protected.
> The thing is, (IIRC) ezmlm lets you do this.  You don't need to password
> it because it's only allowed to be requested by the owner, and the reply
> goes back to the configured owner address.

And how is the owner identified?

I like the idea, as long as it's protected properly.

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Christian Laursen]

Jakob Hirsch <jh@plonk.de> writes:

> Mike Grice wrote:
> 
> >>should be not too hard to implement, but it has to be password- or
> >>challange/response-protected.
> > The thing is, (IIRC) ezmlm lets you do this.  You don't need to password
> > it because it's only allowed to be requested by the owner, and the reply
> > goes back to the configured owner address.
> 
> And how is the owner identified?

By LISTDIR/control/owner.

-- 
Christian Laursen

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Jakob Hirsch]

Christian Laursen wrote:

>>And how is the owner identified?
> By LISTDIR/control/owner.

So everybody abusing the list owner's address will be obeyed?
You must be kidding...

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Christian Laursen]

Jakob Hirsch <jh@plonk.de> writes:

> Christian Laursen wrote:
> 
> >>And how is the owner identified?
> > By LISTDIR/control/owner.
> 
> So everybody abusing the list owner's address will be obeyed?
> You must be kidding...

So the bad guys can send the subscriber list to the owner.

If they want to annoy the owner by sending him mails, they can
do so anyway, so it doesn't really make a big difference.

-- 
Christian Laursen

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Jakob Hirsch]

Christian Laursen wrote:

> So the bad guys can send the subscriber list to the owner.

The talk was also about list management.
list is harmless, obviously (unless you have a really large list).

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Christopher Mahmood]

* Jakob Hirsch (jh@plonk.de) [050412 16:15]:
> Christian Laursen wrote:
> 
> >So the bad guys can send the subscriber list to the owner.
> 
> The talk was also about list management.
> list is harmless, obviously (unless you have a really large list).

The worst a bad guy can do is generate confirmation requests that
are sent to the owner (or moderator in the case of ezmlm+idx).
Unless they can actually read the mail that is sent and get the
authentication cookie in the reply-to address there's nothing they
can do.

This kind of sums it up for ezmlm+idx:
http://www.dk.ezmlm.org/faq/FAQ-4.html#ss4.17
http://www.dk.ezmlm.org/faq/FAQ-4.html#ss4.14

-- 

-ckm

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Mike Grice]

On Tue, 2005-04-12 at 20:23 -0700, Christopher Mahmood wrote:
> * Jakob Hirsch (jh@plonk.de) [050412 16:15]:
> > Christian Laursen wrote:
> > 
> > >So the bad guys can send the subscriber list to the owner.
> > 
> > The talk was also about list management.
> > list is harmless, obviously (unless you have a really large list).
> 
> The worst a bad guy can do is generate confirmation requests that
> are sent to the owner (or moderator in the case of ezmlm+idx).
> Unless they can actually read the mail that is sent and get the
> authentication cookie in the reply-to address there's nothing they
> can do.
> 
> This kind of sums it up for ezmlm+idx:
> http://www.dk.ezmlm.org/faq/FAQ-4.html#ss4.17
> http://www.dk.ezmlm.org/faq/FAQ-4.html#ss4.14

In regards to the $listname+list command, this is exactly what I meant.
In summary, the list-owner has control of the destination address for
the list command, so there are no problems.  Even doing it in a
spam-style way is moot as the list owner can always be contacted at the
$listname-owner (in ezmlm) way anyway.

My main reason for requesting this feature is that I'm moving an ISP
over from ezmlm to mlmmj (hopefully!).  This is just pretty much the
remaining feature that if I can get, customers don't get any loss in
functionality.

I was hoping it wouldn't be a 'biggie' to implement as the functionality
is already available via the mlmmj-list command.

It's probably possible to code up some kind of wrapper, but given how
elegant mlmmj is anyway, it would be really nice to have.

Mike

-- 
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Mike Grice]

On Tue, 2005-04-12 at 20:23 -0700, Christopher Mahmood wrote:
> * Jakob Hirsch (jh@plonk.de) [050412 16:15]:
> > Christian Laursen wrote:
> > 
> > >So the bad guys can send the subscriber list to the owner.
> > 
> > The talk was also about list management.
> > list is harmless, obviously (unless you have a really large list).
> 
> The worst a bad guy can do is generate confirmation requests that
> are sent to the owner (or moderator in the case of ezmlm+idx).
> Unless they can actually read the mail that is sent and get the
> authentication cookie in the reply-to address there's nothing they
> can do.
> 
> This kind of sums it up for ezmlm+idx:
> http://www.dk.ezmlm.org/faq/FAQ-4.html#ss4.17
> http://www.dk.ezmlm.org/faq/FAQ-4.html#ss4.14

So can listname+list be added to the wishlist for features please?  It's
all thats stopping me ditching ezmlm entirely. :)

Cheers
Mike

-- 
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.

Re: Feature Request: Subscriber Lists

[Mads Martin Joergensen]

* Mike Grice <Mike@MikeGrice.com> [Apr 16. 2005 18:24]:
> > This kind of sums it up for ezmlm+idx:
> > http://www.dk.ezmlm.org/faq/FAQ-4.html#ss4.17
> > http://www.dk.ezmlm.org/faq/FAQ-4.html#ss4.14
> 
> So can listname+list be added to the wishlist for features please?  It's
> all thats stopping me ditching ezmlm entirely. :)

I've just finished implementing listname+list, and is about to start
testing. When I feel confident about it, 1.2.5 is on it's way out.

Sorry for the delay, but work have been taking quite some time lately.

-- 
Mads Martin Joergensen, http://mmj.dk
"Why make things difficult, when it is possible to make them cryptic
 and totally illogical, with just a little bit more effort?"
                                -- A. P. J.