The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

[CSS <address@concealed>]

On Sep 7, 2011, at 2:51 PM, Elwyn Davies wrote:

> Hi, Charles.
> 
> I am glad you found my stuff useful!

I'm top-posting a bit here, but I wonder if you could confirm if this 
explanation of how the postfix side of this works seems correct to you?

Here's how I think this works. Domain is lists.hostcompanion.com. List is 
"address@concealed". Inbound email is a subscribe request via 
email, so "address@concealed". Delivery and rewrite 
path goes like this then:

        • address@concealed comes in - Postfix knows it 
receives "lists.hostcompanion.com" email from the main.cf line 
"virtual_alias_domains = lists.hostcompanion.com"

        • Postfix then checks if the user exists. The main.cf line 
"virtual_alias_maps = 
regexp:/usr/local/etc/sympa/postfix/lists.hostcompanion.com" tells it to 
check the referenced file, which supports regex matching, to see if the user 
matches.

        • In that regex file, this line matches: 
"/^(test1)-(request|editor|owner|subscribe|unsubscribe)\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/
 $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympa$2.". The match is first on "test1", and the 
parens means to save "test1" in $1. The "-" matches, and again, the parens 
tell it to save the match, this time in $2 (second match). Lastly, the 
"@lists.hostcompanion.com" matches. This is therefore deliverable, and 
postfix accepts the message.

        • That same regex file not only does a match to confirm the address 
is valid, but it has rewritten it based on the 
"$1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympa$2." half of the regex.

        • The address is now "test1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympasubscribe." 
(note the trailing ".")

        • The transports match comes next. The line "/^.*\@sympasubscribe$/ 
sympasubscribe:" matches the "@sympasubscribe." that was the result of the 
rewrite.

        • The transport match tells Postfix to hand this to the 
"sympasubscribe" transport defined in master.cf.

        • The master.cf line "flags=RF user=sympa 
argv=/usr/local/libexec/sympa/queue ${user}-subscribe@${extension}" is used.

        • master.cf is referencing "user" and "extension". "user" is the 
address to the left of the "+" in our last rewrite (ie: test1) and 
"extension" is everything between the "+" and the "@" in the last rewrite 
(ie: lists.hostcompanion.com).

        • This means /usr/local/libexec/sympa/queue is called like so: 
"/usr/local/libexec/sympa/queue address@concealed" (and 
the queue has access to the envelope-from to know *who* to subscribe of 
course).

I'm not so sure about the transport matching, and I'm also unclear on the 
"sympasubscribe." domain and where postfix learns that it's local.  Other 
than that, do I basically have the message flow down?

> As far as I can see, you are pretty much done.

Let's hope so, this hurt my brain.

Thanks,

Charles

> You seem to think you have a problem here in that you have to paste this in 
> manually..
> 
>>> And finally, the hack that I stick in the top of that same file to handle 
>>> the
>>> bounces, posts, etc.:
>>> 
>>> # this seems to be necessary, probably belongs somewhere else
>>> /^(sympa)\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/
>>> $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympalist.
>>> /^(listmaster)\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/
>>> $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympalist.
>>> 
> Well you could do some extra stuff to generate this automatically with
> the first instance of the list, but I didn't.
> 
> Its a once per virtual host operation, so I just left it for manual
> config.  I only really cared about making extra lists (I only had one
> host to worry about so it wasn't a big deal).  You will have to do it
> for each virtual host.
> 
> This line is *NOT* required (and will probably screw things up)
> /^(.*+owner\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/
>>> $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympaowner.
>>> 
> 
> The aliases already cope with address@concealed etc
> 
> One point which is not clear form your mail is that it is essential that
> there are no extra newlines in the added lines.. if they are really like
> this in the virtual host aliases file, then they won't work.  You need
> something like:
> /^(root|postmaster)\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/      
> address@concealed
> /^(sympa|listmaster)\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/     
> $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympalist.
> 
> where there is no newline after .com$/
> 
> BTW
> If you are willing to send me the updated conf.pm etc files, I'll add
> them to the description so that people can use them with the latest
> version.  I haven't had occasion to upversion my installation yet as it
> does everything we needed (very simple requirements) and the password
> improvement was not essential.  For our purposes the shared documents
> folders were really helpful!
> 
> Regards,
> Elwyn Davies
> 
> On Wed, 2011-09-07 at 09:14 +0200, address@concealed wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I'm having a tough time getting this setup properly for a non-profit I'm
>> working with.
>> 
>> I read up on Sympa's features and it looks like the right choice - it 
>> covers
>> three things they need - web-based posting, discussion lists, and announce
>> lists.  And it covers things I need like a decent permissions system and
>> bounce processing.
>> 
>> After reading about the various Postfix integration methods, this one 
>> seemed
>> like it was the best in that it would not make me a backscatter source (the
>> other options for virtual setups do rejects after the message enters the 
>> queue
>> due to their greedy regex matching):
>> 
>> http://www.folly.org.uk/sympa/sympa_config_03.html
>> 
>> It's a nice setup, but the changes to Sympa since that was released left me
>> having to patch up Conf.pm, alias_manage.pl, and confdefs.pm.
>> 
>> This seems to work however - all my address@concealed mappings work,
>> those aliases are generated automatically by the patched alias manager.  
>> The
>> Conf.pm changes are working fine (set flags in each virthost robot.conf).
>> 
>> What I seem to be missing since I'm looking at so many Postfix tutorials, 
>> many
>> of which are now outdated, is how to handle my address@concealed 
>> mappings.
>> I can't find a decent reference for that.  Below is my current postfix 
>> setup,
>> which seems to work, but I need to add a mapping manually for each host as
>> noted in the config.
>> 
>> Let's start with main.cf:
>> 
>> #
>> # SYMPA STUFF
>> #
>> transport_maps = regexp:/usr/local/etc/postfix/transport_sympa
>> 
>> # Set the concurrency for delivery to Sympa
>> sympalist_destination_recipient_limit = 1
>> symparequest_destination_recipient_limit = 1
>> sympaeditor_destination_recipient_limit = 1
>> sympasubscribe_destination_recipient_limit = 1
>> sympaunsubscribe_destination_recipient_limit = 1
>> sympabounce_destination_recipient_limit = 1
>> 
>> # Specify the virtual alias domain(s)
>> virtual_alias_domains = lists.hostcompanion.com,lists.o4onyc.org
>> 
>> # Specify the virtual alias file(s) - this is the only per virthost config
>> virtual_alias_maps = regexp:/usr/local/etc/sympa/postfix/
>> lists.hostcompanion.com,regexp:/usr/local/etc/sympa/postfix/lists.o4onyc.org
>> 
>> Then the transport maps:
>> 
>> # Transport map for Sympa virtual domain transports
>> /^.*\@sympalist$/         sympalist:
>> /^.*\@symparequest$/      symparequest:
>> /^.*\@sympaeditor$/       sympaeditor:
>> /^.*\@sympasubscribe$/    sympasubscribe:
>> /^.*\@sympaunsubscribe$/  sympaunsubscribe:
>> /^.*\@sympaowner$/       sympabounce:
>> 
>> And master.cf:
>> 
>> # Sympa mailing list manager transports
>> sympalist     unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
>>  flags=RF user=sympa argv=/usr/local/libexec/sympa/queue 
>> ${user}@${extension}
>> symparequest     unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
>>  flags=RF user=sympa argv=/usr/local/libexec/sympa/queue ${user}-request@
>> ${extension}
>> sympaeditor     unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
>>  flags=RF user=sympa argv=/usr/local/libexec/sympa/queue ${user}-editor@
>> ${extension}
>> sympasubscribe     unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
>>  flags=RF user=sympa argv=/usr/local/libexec/sympa/queue ${user}-subscribe@
>> ${extension}
>> sympaunsubscribe     unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
>>  flags=RF user=sympa argv=/usr/local/libexec/sympa/queue 
>> ${user}-unsubscribe@
>> ${extension}
>> sympabounce     unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
>>  flags=RF user=sympa argv=/usr/local/libexec/sympa/bouncequeue ${user}
>> 
>> And now the aliases that are autogenerated for one virthost:
>> 
>> ## This virtual aliases file for domain lists.hostcompanion.com is 
>> dedicated
>> to Sympa Mailing List Manager
>> ## You should edit your Postfix main.cf file to declare it
>> ##
>> /^lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/            xxx
>> ##
>> #------------------------------ test1: list alias created 06 Sep 2011
>> /^(test1)-(request|editor|owner|subscribe|unsubscribe)\@lists\.hostcompanion
>> \.com$/    $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympa$2.
>> /^(test1)\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/
>> $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympalist.
>> 
>> And finally, the hack that I stick in the top of that same file to handle 
>> the
>> bounces, posts, etc.:
>> 
>> # this seems to be necessary, probably belongs somewhere else
>> /^(sympa)\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/
>> $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympalist.
>> /^(listmaster)\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/
>> $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympalist.
>> /^(.*+owner\@lists\.hostcompanion\.com$/
>> $1+lists.hostcompanion.com@sympaowner.
>> 
>> I'm pretty lost here - any input is appreciated.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Charles
>