Listproc Frequently Asked Questions

In This Section

Listproc - an expanded FAQ

Table of contents

Overview of listproc
General listproc information
1. How do I make it so I do/don't receive a copy of messages I send to a list?
2. How do I find out what the settings of a list are?
The basics for subscribers
The basics for listproc owners
Troubleshooting listproc problems
Advanced options for listproc owners

I. Overview of listproc

What is listproc?

Listproc is a software package that automates the administration of electronic mail distribution lists. Once the list is created, it can be set up to have users add and remove themselves with little list owner intervention. It has various levels of moderation, so that most any user needs can be met.

Who can request a listproc mailing list?

Information Technology creates listproc mailing lists for faculty (class), departmental, and for ASUCD recognized student groups use. If you are requesting the list for a class, you must be the faculty or TA in charge of that class.

Where do I mail requests?

There are essentially three addresses you need to remember when dealing with listproc mailing lists. They are:

listproc@ucdavis.edu -- send admin requests (add, delete, config, edit, etc.) here. This is the automated software that responds to the admin requests.
list-request@ucdavis.edu -- send non automated requests that require human intervention to this address. ie. forgotten passwords, list configuration issues, etc.
"yourlist"@ucdavis.edu -- This is how you send mail to the subscribers of "yourlist" (substitute your real list name for "yourlist", of course. ie age144@ucdavis.edu).
listinfo@ucdavis.edu -- A mailing list of list owners. This is a helpful forum for asking general or specific questions about list management. We are working on a UCD listproc FAQ which will answer most questions for you.

II. General listproc information

How do I make it so I do/don't receive a copy of messages I send to a list?

There is an option in the subscribers file that determines whether the sender of a message receives a copy or not. To set this option(called ack or noack) so that you will receive a copy of your message, send a message to listproc@ucdavis.edu formatted like so:

set <listname> mail ack So, if I wanted to get a copy of every message I sent to the list 'compliments', I would email this message to listproc@ucdavis.edu: set compliments mail ack To make sure you don't get a copy of messages that you send to the list, send a message as above, but substitute the word 'noack' for the word 'ack'.

How do I find out what the settings of a list are?

To do this, send listproc@ucdavis.edu a message as follows:

review <list-name> short Therefore, if you wanted to find out what the settings of the list 'fermsci' are, you would send the message review fermsci short The listprocessor will return a list of settings, including archive status, moderation status, message limit, auto-delete-subscribers, review, owners, and several others.

III. The basics for subscribers

How do I subscribe to / unsubscribe from a UC Davis list?

To subscribe to a list you can send mail to listproc@ucdavis.edu. The body of the message should consist of a single line formatted as follows:

sub <list name> <first name> <last name> So if Joe User wanted to subscribe to the list called listinfo, he would send this message to listproc@ucdavis.edu: sub listinfo Joe User If you want to unsubscribe from a list, send mail to listproc@ucdavis.edu with a body like this: unsub <listname> or signoff <listname> You need to send the unsubscribe request from the same account that you used to subscribe to the list.

Common errors when subscribing to a UC Davis mailing list

Misspelling the word "subscribe" when subscribing to a list. To avoid this, users can substitute the abbreviation "sub" or the word "join" for the word "subscribe". Users are strongly encouraged to use the abbreviations when subscribing to a list.
Misspelling the name of a list. Some list names contain a '-L' in them, which can be hard to distinguish from a '-1' when typed in lowercase. People occasionally split a list name into two or more words, as well. All lists consist of a single word, sometimes hyphenated. If you are unsure of the name of a list, you can send mail to listproc@ucdavis.edu with the single word 'lists' as the body. The listprocessor will then mail you a listing of all the current lists, which you can compare with the list whose name you are unsure of.
When following the format 'sub <list name> <first name> <last name>' to subscribe to a list, users will occasionally send a mail message to the listprocessor saying literally 'subscribe list name first name last name'. What you should send to listproc is a message containing the word 'sub' followed by the name of the list you want to subscribe to, your first name, and your last name. For example, if Joe Shmoe wanted to subscribe to the list called 'listinfo' he would send mail to listproc@ucdavis.edu with the body of the message containing this single line that follows:
sub listinfo Joe Shmoe
Including one or more of the following symbols in the message to the listprocessor: < > [ ]. When you see these symbols, they indicate a request for information. If you see something enclosed in < and >, this means that information is required. If it is inside of [ and ], it means that entering information in that field is optional.

How do I subscribe to a non UC Davis mailing list?

Take a look at the E-Mail Discussion Groups/Lists - Resources page. It contains a lot of useful information, on this and other topics.

How do I send mail to a UC Davis list?

Simply mail a message to "yourlist"@ucdavis.edu (substitute your real list name for "yourlist", of course. ie age144@ucdavis.edu).

How do I get the names of all the lists?

You can't actually get the names of all the lists, because some list owners choose to make their lists hidden. However, to get the names of the lists that are visible, send a message to listproc@ucdavis.edu with the body containing the single word 'lists'. The listprocessor will reply with all the current visible lists.

Postponing/resuming messages from a list.

It is recommended that instead of postponing messages, you unsubscribe and then subscribe to the list in question. Postponing will not actually delay messages and then send them to you once you resume. Any messages sent during the time you are postponed will not be sent to you.
If you wish to postpone, you can use a command in this form:

set <list> mail postpone To resume, simply change modes. Send listproc@ucdavis.edu a message such as set <list> mail ack

IV. The basics for listproc owners

How do I add subscribers to my list?

Send a mail message formatted as follows to listproc@ucdavis.edu:

add <list name> <password> <user email address> <user full name> As an option, you can prepend the word 'quiet' to the command, so that the person is not informed that they have been added to a list.
So, for example, if I wanted to add Joe Shmoe to a list, named 'listinfo', I would send the listprocessor one of the following two commands, assuming that the password for the group is 'gopherguts': 'add listinfo gopherguts joe@ucdavis.edu Joe Shmoe quiet' or 'add listinfo gopherguts joe@ucdavis.edu Joe Shmoe'. If I wanted to add more than one person to a list, I can send a single multi-command message to the listprocessor. Say I have a few friends, Joe Shmoe, Don Knotts, John Candy, and Elvis Presley, and I want to add them all to listinfo. I would send the listprocessor a message as follows: add listinfo gopherguts joe@ucdavis.edu Joe Shmoe
add listinfo gopherguts knotts@ucdavis.edu Don Knotts
add listinfo gopherguts candy@ucdavis.edu John Candy
add listinfo gopherguts elvis@ucdavis.edu Elvis Presley

How do I remove subscribers from my list?

To delete a single user, send listproc@ucdavis.edu a message with the body in the following format:

[quiet] delete <list name> <password> <addresses to remove> So if I wanted to remove Joe Shmoe from the list called listinfo, I would send one of the following two messages to listproc@ucdavis.edu (once again assuming that the password for the list is 'gopherguts'): delete listinfo gopherguts joe@ucdavis.edu quiet delete listinfo gopherguts joe@ucdavis.edu Using the keyword 'quiet' will assure that the deleted user is not informed of their removal from the list. If I wanted to remove more than one person at a time, I have two options. For method number one, I would issue a command such as the following: delete listinfo gopherguts joe@ucdavis.edu &
candy@ucdavis.edu &
elvis@ucdavis.edu &
knotts@ucdavis.edu For method two, I would send listproc a single message with a body containing multiple commands, as follows: delete listinfo gopherguts joe@ucdavis.edu
delete listinfo gopherguts candy@ucdavis.edu
delete listinfo gopherguts elvis@ucdavis.edu
delete listinfo gopherguts knotts@ucdavis.edu To issue a multi-line command, you must break the line with an ampersand ( & ). If you do not place an ampersand to indicate continuation of a command, all lines but the first will be ignored.

How do I add a welcome message?

Send listproc@ucdavis.edu mail with a command formatted like this at the top of your message:

put <list name> <password> welcome On a separate line (or lines) type the message that you want subscribers to see. Note that the listprocessor has a default message of its own, so any message you want to send subscribers will be appended to the default message. Also be aware of signature files which might be appended automatically to mail you send. If you do not remove these, they will end up in your message. Remember that any old welcome message that exists will be overwritten when you 'put' the new message. To change an existing message, you can use the edit command. After you receive and edit the file, you can use the 'put' command to replace the file.

How do I modify an already existing welcome/info/etc. . . file?

If you send listproc@ucdavis.edu a message formatted as follows, the listprocessor will send you the requested file.

edit <listname> <password> <filename to be edited> So, if I wanted to edit the welcome message on a list named 'chicken-liver', with the password 'blechh', I would use the following command: 'edit chicken-liver blechh welcome'. The welcome file will then be sent to you for you to edit. You can either save the message to a file and edit it as you like (as long as you save the file as plain ascii), or you can edit it in pine, by either replying or forwarding the message back to listproc@ucdavis.edu after placing a put command at the top of the message. Don't forget to remove any lines that the listprocessor adds to the requested file in the process of sending it to you. Also, if you reply or forward the message back to the listprocessor, your mail program might add characters to the file, which you would then need to remove.

How do I add another owner to my list?

Send a mail message to listproc@ucdavis.edu with a command formatted as follows:

config <list name> <password> owners <owner address 1> [owner address 2]... You can indicate as many owner names as you want, as indicated by the '...'. You can also run the listproc interactively, logging in with your owner-name and password, and execute the above command.

As an example, I own the list 'davetest'. Say my password is 'snail', and I want to add bobo@ucdavis.edu and joe@ucdavis.edu as owners of my list. I would send the listprocessor the following command:

config davetest snail owners bobo@ucdavis.edu joe@ucdavis.edu

Ok, so how do I remove an owner from my list?

Use the same command that you would use to add an owner to a list, except you use the word "remove-owners" in place of the word "owners".

How do I change my password?

Send a message to listproc@ucdavis.edu formatted as follows:

config <listname> <password> password <new password> Example: If I owned the list named listinfo, and my password was 'bifurcate', but I wanted to change it to 'split' instead, I would send the listprocessor this command: config listinfo bifurcate password split

How do I make my list moderated/unmoderated?

Making a list moderated or unmoderated is easy. There are a few options available to you. You can specify that the list be moderated without editing, which means that the moderator simply approves or discards messages to the list, or you can have it be moderated with editing. You can also specify a moderator other than the list owner(s). Send listproc@ucdavis.edu email containing a single line formatted like this:

config <listname> <password> moderated-no-edit [moderator's address] If you want to be able to edit messages sent to the list, substitute the word 'moderated-edit' for the word 'moderated-no-edit'. For [moderator's address] you can either type in the address of a desired moderator for the list, or you can not type anything at all. If you don't specify a moderator's address, the owner(s) of the list will automatically be set as the moderator(s).

Once you have finished with a message, and want to send it on to the subscribers of the list, you must use the approve command. The format of the 'approve' command is as follows:

approve <listname> <password> <tag> [tag] This will approve the message(s) identified by the tag number(s) for posting to the specified list.

Common mistakes when managing a list

After requesting a file with the 'edit' command, list owners occasionally will forget to remove the line
' *** Here is the <name> file (WARNING: file automatically locked):'
which the listprocessor prepends to the requested file.

How do I get the names of all the people subscribed to a list?

There is more than one way to do this, one of which requires that you be the owner of the list in question.

In general, if you want to see who is subscribed to a list (those subscribers who are not concealed), you can use the 'recipients' command, formatted like so: recipients <list name> So, to get a list of recipients for the list 'win95', I would send listproc@ucdavis.edu this message: recipients win95
This method requires that you be the owner of the list you want to look at. You will need to send the listprocessor an 'edit' command, and append '-nolock' on the end. If I wanted to look at but not edit the subscribers file for the listinfo list, and the password was 'existentialism', I would send listproc@ucdavis.edu this command: edit listinfo existentialism subscribers -nolock For the formal format of the edit command, take a look at this question .
Optionally, you can use the 'review' command, formatted as follows: review <list name> [short|description|subscribers] So, to get the list of subscribers for a list, say 'think-exec', send listproc@ucdavis.edu this message: review think-exec subscribers The 'short' option will give give you information about the list's settings. The 'description' option will return the list's general information file to you.

V. Troubleshooting listproc problems

ilp returns with 'connection refused'

There are a couple of simple reasons you might get this message. You may be misspelling the name of the server you are trying to connect to. The server for lists is listproc.ucdavis.edu . You may also get this error when the server you are trying to connect to is down. If the error persists for more than a couple of minutes, please send mail to Postmaster.

Why is my mailbox filling with errors?

Here are a few reasons this might be happening:

There may be addresses on the subscriber list that are invalid. If so you will get an error message any time mail is sent to the list. The message will contain all the names of subscribers, but will also point out the addresses that are unknown, and have caused delivery problems.
For example, if the user smithers@ucdavis.edu is subscribed to your list, but the address doesn't actually exist, you may see part of an error message that looks like this:
check_mta_response(): Address: RCPT To: <smithers@ucdavis.edu> not recognized. 550 <smithers@ucdavis.edu>... User unknown If this happens, you should remove the name from the list.
If there is someone on your list whose mail quota has been reached or exceeded, you will get an error message. The message may contain all the names of those on the list, and state that there was an unrecoverable error for each list subscriber, but those people will still get the mail. The significant error in a case such as this will be formatted like this: mail: Cannot append to /var/mail/ezxxxxxx. You can either ignore this error and wait for the user to read his/her mail, or you could unsubscribe him/her.
If you have requested the names of all the users on your list by using the 'recipients' command, and then mistakenly put this list in the place of the subscribers file, you will get an error for each person on your list. This is because the information provided by the 'recipients' command is not the same as the information in the subscribers file. If this happens you will have to re-subscribe all of the list users. To edit the subscribers file you must use the 'edit' command, and then 'put' the file back.

I'm not getting mail sent to my list.

Even though you may be an owner of a list, that doesn't neccessarily mean that you will receive mail sent to that list. If you have not done so, you must subscribe yourself to your list in order to receive mail sent to it.

If you send all or most of the messages to your list, and you have an option set so that you do not receive a copy of your messages to the list, then you will not get any mail from the list. This is the 'ack/noack' option. See this question to learn how to set this option.

VI. Advanced options for listproc owners

Controlling subscriptions to your list

There is more than one way you can restrict subscriptions to a list.

You can make your list completely closed to subscriptions by sending the listprocessor a message formatted like this: config <listname> <password> closed-subscriptions So, for the list davetest, with the password 'snail', I would send listproc@ucdavis.edu this message: config davetest snail closed-subscriptions
You could also make your list hidden, so that people will not see it when they request the list names from the listprocessor. If they can't see the name, they won't think to subscribe to it. To do this, send the listprocessor a message like the one above, but substitute the word 'hidden-list' for the word 'closed-subscriptions'.
Set the list so that any subscriptions have to be approved either by the list owner, or by a subscription manager. To do this, send the listprocessor a configuration message as above, substituting the word 'owner-subscriptions' for the word 'closed-subscriptions'. To set the list up so that it has a subscription manager, send the listprocessor a command as follows: config <listname> <password> subscription-managers <manager address>
Put specific entries in you 'ignored' file. You can place specific people in this file, domains, specific machines, etc. To do this you can either request the 'ignored' file using the edit command, or send the listprocessor a command formatted as follows: ignore <listname> <password> <string to be ignored>
<string to be ignored> could be just about anything. If you wanted to ignore me, it would be itcamp. If you wanted to ignore any address with the string '@aol.com', it would just be @aol.com.

Controlling who sends mail to your list

As a global solution, you can make your list moderated, so each message sent to the list requires moderator approval. This requires that the moderator read each message sent to the list, but it assures that no undesirable messages get through.

It is also possible to ignore certain addresses by using the 'ignore' file. See number four of the above question for information on how to use the 'ignored' file and command. If a person is subscribed to a list and then placed in the 'ignored' file, they will still be subscribed to the list and will still receive mail from the list, but they won't be able to send mail to the list.

A list can be made so that only subscribers and list owners can post to the list, as well. In fact, this is currently the default. To do this, if it is not already done, send listproc@ucdavis.edu mail with a body formatted like so:

config <listname> <password> send-by-subscribers So for the list named 'listinfo', with the password 'figs', I would send this command: config listinfo figs send-by-subscribers

If you wanted to set the list up so that only the list owners can send mail to the list, you could use the above command, using the word 'send-by-owners' instead of the word 'send-by-subscribers'. To allow everyone in the entire world to post to your mailing list, use the word 'send-by-all'.

Editing the subscribers file directly

To edit the subscribers file directly, you have to use the edit command. To get the subscribers file, send listproc@ucdavis.edu a message formatted as follows:

edit <listname> <password> subscribers So for the list called 'pot-belly-pigs', with the password 'oink', you would send this command to get the subscribers file: edit pot-belly-pigs oink subscribers The listprocessor will then send you the subscribers file in a mail message. You can then save the file and edit it. I suggest that you leave the header line that the listprocessor prepends to the message, until just before you send the file back. Before you put the file back, check and see that you're putting the file back under the same name that you received it, and then delete that line. If you receive a file under one name and then put it back under another name, you may be very sorry.

To put the file back, send listproc@ucdavis.edu mail with a 'put' command at the very top of the message, and the subscribers file (without the line the listprocessor prepended to the file) immediately following the command line. For the list 'pot-belly-pigs' with the password 'oink', I would use the following 'put' command:

put pot-belly-pigs oink subscribers