Developers of Sympa

[Olivier Salaun <address@concealed>]

Hi,

Sergiy Zhuk wrote:

> Attached is a patch to allow sympa to check if the alias with the same name
> as the list you're gonna create already exists on your smtp server.
> It's robot specific, i.e. you can specify a different smtp server for every
> virtual host you're running.
> This is needed if you're running sympa or somehost.foo.org, but you handle
> all your mail on a separate mail relay, so addresses look like address@concealed,
> rather than address@concealed.
> To use the feature, you should define the following options in sympa.conf
> or in robots.conf:
> 
> list_check_smtp         smtp.foo.bar
> list_check_suffixes     request,owner,unsubscribe
> 
> The first one is the name of your smtp relay, the second one is a
> comma-separated list of admin suffixes you're using for sympa aliases, i.e.
> list-request, list-owner etc...

We have integrated your patch in the current development version of Sympa,
with just a few changes :
        o lowered SMTP timeout from '300' to '30' sec.
          It is far enough for a CGI that requires good perfs
        o set 'list_check_suffixes' default to 'request,owner,unsubscribe'
        o turned 'use Net::SMTP' to 'require Net::SMTP', allowing
          to catch an error ; otherwise wwsympa.fcgi would die if Net::SMTP
          is not installed
        o Add 'Net::SMTP' to check_perl_modules.pl

Could you provide documentation (see sympa.tex.tpl) for this new feature.

> I also have 2 questions:
> 
> 1. why do you make passwords case insensitive ?

We had many problems with our subscribers, concerning case-sensitive 
passwords.
Sympa should not lowecase it before DB insertion though ; I just changed this.

> 2. why do you hint password guessers by telling them the part of the
>    password they've entered was correct ?

You're right, this allows to guess anybody's password.
We've removed this from CVS ; we'll distribute a security fix for it.

Thanks for your contribution.

--
Olivier Salaün
Comité Réseau des Universités