Provided by: enemies-of-carlotta_1.2.6-4_all 
NAME
enemies-of-carlotta - a simple mailing list manager
SYNOPSIS
enemies-of-carlotta [options] [addresses]
DESCRIPTION
enemies-of-carlotta is a simple mailing list manager. If you don't know what a mailing
list manager is, you should learn what they are before trying to use one. A manual page
is unfortunately too short to explain it.
Enemies of Carlotta keeps all data about the lists in the ~/.enemies-of-carlotta
directory. It will be created automatically when you create your first list. You need to
arrange manually for the mails to be processed by the list manager. The details differ
from mail system to another. For QMail and Postfix, see below.
Each list has one or more owners, who also moderate subscriptions or moderate some or all
postings. On completely unmoderated lists the list owners are responsible for answering
questions about the list. On completely moderated lists, they have to approve each
message before it is sent to the list. On lists with posting=auto, messages from
subscribers are sent automatically to the list, and the moderators have to approve the
rest.
OPTIONS
--name=foo@example.com
Specify the list the command is to operate on. Most of the remaining options
require you to set the list name with this option. With the --edit, --subscribe,
--unsubscribe, and --list options, the name can be abbreviated to by leaving out
the @ sign and domain.
--create
Create a new list. You must specify at least one owner with --owner.
--owner=address
Specify a list owner when creating or editing a list.
--moderator=address
Specificy a list moderator when creating or editing a list.
--language=language-code
Set the language code used for looking up template files. The code should be empty
(the default, meaning English), or a two-letter code such as fi or es.
--cleaning-woman
Deal with bouncing addresses and do other cleanup. You must run
enemies-of-carlotta --cleaning-woman periodically, such as once per hour. It will
clean up all your lists.
--destroy
Destroy the list.
--edit Modify the list configuration.
--subscription=type
When creating a list, set its subscription mode to free or moderated. Use with
--edit, or --create.
--posting=type
When creating a list, set its posting mode to free (anyone can post), auto (only
subscribers can post, mails from others need to be moderated), or moderated (all
mails are moderated). Use with --edit, or --create.
--archived=yes-or-no
Should list messages be archived to the archive-box directory in the list directory
under the ~/.enemies-of-carlotta directory. Use yes or no.
--mail-on-subscription-changes=yes-or-no
Should the list owners be notified when someone subscribes to or unsubscribes from
the list? Use yes or no. Default is no.
--mail-on-forced-unsubscription=yes-or-no
Should list owners be notified when someone is forcibly dropped from the list due
to too much bouncing? Use yes or no. Default is no.
--ignore-bounce=yes-or-no
Should bounces be ignored? Use yes or no. Default is no.
--list List the subscribers of a list.
--subscribe
Add subscribers to a list. The non-option arguments are the addresses to be
subscribed. Note that addresses added this way won't be sent confirmation
requests.
--unsubscribe
Remove subscribers from a list. The non-option arguments are the addresses to be
unsubscribed. Note that addresses removed this way won't be sent confirmation
requests.
--incoming
Deal with an incoming message in the standard input. The SMTP envelope sender
address must be given in the SENDER environment variable, and the SMTP envelope
recipient address in the RECIPIENT environment variable. (QMail and Postfix do
this automatically.)
--skip-prefix=string
Before analyzing the recipient address to see which list it refers, remove string
from its beginning. This helps deal with QMail and Postfix virtual domains, see
above.
--domain=domain.name
Before analyzing the recipient address to see which list it refers, replace the
domain name part with domain.name. This helps deal with Postfix virtual domains.
--is-list
Does the address specified with --name refer to a valid list? This sets the exit
code to zero (success) if it does, or one (failure) if it does not.
--sendmail=pathname
Use pathname instead of /usr/sbin/sendmail for sending mail via a command line
interface. Note that the command must obey the sendmail command line interface.
--smtp-server=hostname
Send mail using the SMTP server at hostname (port 25). The server must be
configured to allow the list host to relay mail through it. Note that a command
line interface is used by default; SMTP sending is used only if you use this
option.
--qmqp-server=hostname
Send mail using the QMQP server at hostname (port 628). The server must be
configured to allow the list host to relay mail through it. Note that a command
line interface is used by default; QMQP sending is used only if you use this
option.
--moderate
Force an incoming message to be moderated, even if it is going to a list where
posting is free. This can be used for spam filtering: you pipe incoming messages
through whatever spam filter you choose to use and if the mssage looks like spam,
you ask it to be moderated by a human.
--post Force an incoming message to be posted, even if it is going to a list where posting
is moderated. This can be used when there is an external check for whether a mail
is acceptable to the list, e.g., by checking digital signatures.
--quiet
By default, debugging log messages are sent to the standard error output stream.
With this option, they aren't.
--sender=foo@example.com
--recipient=foo@example.com
These two options are used with --incoming and --is-list to override the
environment variables SENDER and RECIPIENT, respectively.
--get Get the values of one or more configuration variables. The name of the variables
are given on the command line after the options. Each value is printed on a
separate line.
--set Set the values of one or more configuration variables. The names and values are
given on the command line after the options and separated by an equals sign ("=").
For example, the following would set the language of a list to Finnish:
enemies-of-carlotta --name=foo@bar --set language=fi
--version
Print out the version of the program.
--show-lists
List the lists enemies-of-carlotta knows about.
CONFIGURATION
Each list is represented by a directory, named after the list, in ~/.enemies-of-carlotta.
That directory contains several files and directories, described below. In general, it is
not necessary to touch these at all. However, some esoteric configuration can only be
done by hand editing of the list configuration file.
config The list configuration file. Contents are described below.
subscribers
Subscriber database. Each line contains a subscriber group, with the first five
space delimited fields being group identifier, status, timestamp for when the group
was created, timestamp for the bounce that made it switch from status 'ok' to
'bounced', and the bounce identifier.
archive-box
Archived messages.
bounce-box
Bounce messages groups not in state 'ok'.
headers-to-add
These headers are added to the mails sent to the list. They are copied to the
beginning of the existing headers exactly as they are in the file, after list
headers ("List-ID" and such) have been added and those mentioned in
headers-to-remove have been removed.
headers-to-remove
These headers are removed from mails sent to the list.
moderation-box
Messages waiting for moderator approval.
subscription-box
Subscription and unsubscription requests waiting to be confirmed by the user.
templates
Directory containing list specific templates (optional). If this directory exists,
templates are searched from it before going for system wide templates. An empty
file here means the corresponding message is not sent at all. This can, for
example, to be used to turn off the "please wait for moderator" mails on a per-list
basis.
plugins
Directory containing plugins, Python source files that are loaded automatically by
EoC upon startup. The plugins may change how EoC operates.
The config file has a keyword=value format:
[list]
owners = liw@liw.iki.fi
archived = no
posting = free
subscription = free
mail-on-subscription-changes = yes
mail-on-forced-unsubscribe = yes
language = fi
The keywords archived, posting, and subscription correspond to the options with the same
names. Other keywords are:
owners List of addresses for the owners. Set with the --owner option.
moderators
List of addresses for the moderators. Set with the --moderator option.
mail-on-subscription-changes
Should the owners be mailed when users subscribe or unsubscribe?
mail-on-forced-unsubscribe
Should the owners be mailed when people are removed from the list due to excessive
bouncing?
ignore_bounce
Bounce messages are ignored on this list. Useful for example if list should have
static subscriber list.
language
Suffix for templates, to allow support for multiple languages. (If language is set
to "fi", then the template named "foo" is first searched as "foo.fi".)
pristine-headers
Do not MIME encode the headers. Set to "yes" to not encode, anything else
(including empty or unset) means encoding will happen.
EXAMPLES
To create a list called moviefans@example.com, owned by ding@example.com, use the
following command (all on one line):
enemies-of-carlotta --name=moviefans@example.com
--owner=ding@example.com --create
Note that you need to arrange mail to arrive at the list (and its command addresses) by
configuring your mail system. For Qmail and Postfix, see below.
To see the subscribers on that list:
enemies-of-carlotta --name=moviefans@example.com --list
People wanting to subscribe to the list should mail
moviefans-subscribe@example.com
QMAIL
With QMail, to arrange for incoming mail to be processed by Enemies of Carlotta, you need
to create a couple of .qmail-extension files per list. For example, if your username is
joe and you wish to run the joe-fans mailing list, you need to create two files,
.qmail-fans and .qmail-fans-default, containing
|enemies-of-carlotta --incoming
If you're running a virtual domain, example.com, and the mails are being delivered to via
/var/qmail/control/virtualdomains to joe-exampledotcom, the files would be called
.qmail-exampledotcom-fans and .qmail-exampledotcom-fans-default and would contain
|enemies-of-carlotta --incoming --skip-prefix=joe-exampledotcom-
(all on one line, of course, in case the manual page formatter breaks it on several
lines).
COURIER-MTA
For Courier-MTA, the instructions are similar to the Qmail ones above. If your user name
is joe and you wish to run the joe-fans email list, you need to create the two files
.courier-fans and .courier-fans-default in your home directory with the content
|enemies-of-carlotta --is-list --name $RECIPIENT || exit 67
|enemies-of-carlotta --incoming
(The former file needs only the second line, but the first line does no harm and it is
easier to keep track of things when the files have the same content. Note that $RECIPIENT
should be included verbatim, it is not a metavariable for you to expand.)
If you are running a virtual domain configured so that all mail to the domain @example.com
is delivered to joe-exampledotcom, you need to create the files .courier-exampledotcom-
fans and .courier-exampledotcom-fans-default containing the two following lines:
|enemies-of-carlotta --is-list --name $RECIPIENT --skip-prefix=joe-exampledotcom ||
exit 67
|enemies-of-carlotta --incoming --skip-prefix=joe-exampledotcom
If the virtual domain is for list use only, then it is sufficient to create only the file
.courier-exampledotcom-default containing the latter two lines.
POSTFIX
With Postfix, you need to set up a .forward file containing
"|procmail -p"
and then a .procmailrc file containing
:0
* ? enemies-of-carlotta --name=$RECIPIENT --is-list
| enemies-of-carlotta --incoming
To use Enemies of Carlotta with a Postfix virtual domain, you need to set up a virtual
regular expression map, typically called /etc/postfix/virtual_regexp (add virtual_maps =
regexp:/etc/postfix/virtual_regexp to your /etc/postfix/main.cf file to enable it). The
regexp file needs to do ugly things to preserve the recipient address. Add the following
to the regexp file:
/^your.virtual.domain$/ dummy
/^(yourlist|yourlist-.*)@(your.virtual.domain)$/ joe+virtual-$1
That's two lines. Use joe-virtual instead, if recipient_delimiter for your Postfix is
configured to a minus instead of a plus.. Then, in your .procmailrc file, add the
--skip-prefix=joe-virtual- and --domain=your.virtual.domain options to both calls to
enemies-of-carlotta.
(Yes, I think these things are much too complicated, too.)
MAIL COMMANDS
Users and list owners use Enemies of Carlotta via e-mail using command addresses such as
foo-subscribe@example.com. Here is a list of all command addresses list users and owners
can give. In all these examples, the name of the mailing list is foo@example.com.
Mail commands anyone can use
These commands are meant for everyone's use. They don't require any special priviledges.
foo@example.com
Send mail to all list subscribers. The message may have to be manually approved by
the list moderators first, and they have the power to reject a message.
foo-owner@example.com
Send mail to the list owner or owners instead.
foo-help@example.com
Sending mail to this address makes the list manager reply with the help message for
the list.
foo-subscribe@example.com
Send mail to this address to subscribe to a list. The list manager will respond
with a confirmation request. You won't be subscribed unless you reply to the
confirmation request. This way, malicious people can't put your address on a
mailing list, or many mailing lists.
foo-subscribe-joe=example.com@example.com
This is a second form of the subscription address. If you want to subscribe to the
list with another address than the one you're sending mail from, use this one. In
this case, the address to be subscribed is joe@example.com. Note that the
confirmation request is sent to Joe, since it is his address that is to be added to
the list.
foo-unsubscribe@example.com
To unsubscribe from a list, send mail to this address from the address that is
subscribed to the list. Again, you will receive a confirmation request, to prevent
malicious people from unsubscribing you against your will.
foo-unsubscribe-joe=example.com@example.com
To unsubscribe Joe, use this address. Again, it is Joe who gets to confirm.
Mail commands for the list owners
These are commands that list owners can use to administer their list.
foo-subscribe-joe=example.com@example.com
If a list owner sends mail like this, it is they who get the confirmation request,
not Joe. It is generally better for people to subscribe themselves, but sometimes
list owners want to do it, when they have permission from the person and feel
helpful.
foo-unsubscribe-joe=example.com@example.com
List owners can also unsubscribe other people.
foo-list@example.com
To see who are on the list, this is the address to use. It only works if the
sender address is one of the list owners. The sender address is the one used on
the SMTP level, not the one in the From: header.
foo-setlist@example.com
This lets a list owner set the whole subscriber list at once. This is similar to
using lots and lots and lots of -subscribe and -unsubscribe commands, only less
painful. Everyone who is added to the list gets a welcome message, and everyone
who is removed from the list gets a goodbye message.
foo-setlistsilently@example.com
This is similar to -setlist, but no welcome and goodbye messages are sent.
PLUGINS
Enemies of Carlotta supports plugins. If you don't know what Python programming is, you
may want to skip this section.
A plugin is a Python module (file named with a .py suffix), placed in the
~/.enemies-of-carlotta/plugins directory. The plugins are loaded automatically upon
startup, if their declared interface version matches the one implemented by Enemies of
Carlotta. The interface version is declared by the module global variable
PLUGIN_INTERFACE_VERSION.
Plugins can define hook functions that are called by appropriate places in the EoC code.
At the moment, the only hook function is send_mail_to_subscribers_hook, which can
manipulate a mail message before it is sent to the subscribers. The function must look
like this:
def send_mail_to_subscribers_hook(list, text):
The list argument is a reference to the MailingList object that corresponds to the list in
question, and text is the complete text of the mail message as it exists. The function
must return the new contents of the mail message.
FILES
~/.enemies-of-carlotta
All files related to your mailing lists.
~/.enemies-of-carlotta/secret
Secret password used to generate signed addresses for bounce checking and
subscription verification.
~/.enemies-of-carlotta/foo@example.com
Directory containing data pertaining to the foo@example.com list. Except for the
config file in this directory, you shouldn't edit anything by hand.
~/.enemies-of-carlotta/foo@example.com/config
Configuration file for the mailing list. You may need to edit this file by hand if
you wish to change moderation status or list owners.
SEE ALSO
You may want to visit the Enemies of Carlotta home page at http://www.iki.fi/liw/eoc/.
ENEMIES-OF-CARLOTTA(1)