The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

[Steve Shipway <address@concealed>]

The .incl method of defining members would definitely be preferable for us to the template method.

We have a setup where all 2000+ staff members are able to create lists, then our service desk have listmaster privileges to activate them.  We want staff to be able to create lists linked to one or more LDAP datasources (our site directory) so that they can link list membership to LDAP group membership; list families would be no good for this as it does not allow the independent full configuration and flexibility we require.  Currently, they have to define everything apart from the LDAP credentials, which are then added by the service desk; it would be better if they could simply hook in an include file and group name parameter (as they can do with the list owner/editor definitions) and check the membership immediately.  This is also much simpler for inexperienced list owners.

However, some departments have their own LDAP servers, and they need to be able to edit the ldap definitions directly, so restricting the password field access to listmasters only doesn't work for us.

I do agree that it is currently inconsistent to have owners/editors configured with .incl and subscribers with the various include methods, and these should be handled in the same way.  Using the normal include methods for owners/editors would make sense. 

However I think it would be good to provide the .incl method of external definition as well as all the others; although it may not make sense for some, in other cases it can be the best solution.  One of the strengths of Sympa is its flexibilty and wide range of features; I think this would be a useful option to have available, even if not everyone would use it. 

Thanks,

Steve

Steve Shipway

University of Auckland ITS

UNIX Systems Design Lead

address@concealed

Ph: +64 9 373 7599 ext 86487

 

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From: address@concealed [address@concealed] on behalf of David Verdin [address@concealed]
Sent: Thursday, 24 October 2013 9:48 p.m.
To: address@concealed
Subject: Re: [sympa-users] Subscribers via data inclusion file

Dear all,

Le 24/10/13 00:08, Steve Shipway a écrit :

I have created a data inclusion file for querying our LDAP Server for
editor_include and owner_include.

Now I would like to use this file / template also for the subscribers.
In the web-frontend I only see the possibilities to enter all parameters
by hand again. I would like to use the data inclusion template there. Is
there a possibility?

I don't believe that this is currently a possibility (we have 6.1.14).  However, we'd also really like to have this feature as it allows you to set up the LDAP credentials but not reveal them to the list owners who use the include template.  I seem to remember asking for this previously on the Sympa-users list, so with luck it may appear in a forthcoming version...

Indeed, this is not possible for now.
Actually, the plan was even to remove entirely the datasource definition through external file and replace it by paragraphs in the config file, even for moderaotrs and list owners.
Now that you mention it, the good aspect of this mechanism is the reusability of the datasources.
However, we have implemented list families, in which you define a config template that will be applied to all the lists of the family. That's why we wanted to get rid of the data inclusion file: we have a mechanism that allows templating for any list parameter.
I really think that the list families would be a good solution to the current problem - and you can hide passwords in the list adminsitration pages using edit_list.conf, so it is not really a problem.

Please let me know if this solution is good for you or if you see use cases where it can't apply.

Best regards,

David