EZMLM Features

Easy to Join and Leave Lists

In addition to fast delivery, EZMLM makes it easy for people to subscribe and unsubscribe. There is no need to learn weird commands, just sent an email to listname-subscribe@domain to subscribe and listname-unsubscribe@domain to unsubscribe. This usability enhancement alone can increase the size of your list and reduce the number of complaints from people who aren't quite able to figure out the right command to leave the list.

EZMLM is Reliable

EZMLM always saves new subscriptions and messages to disk before reporting success, making it reliable even should the system crash.

EZMLM is Good for Large Mailing Lists

EZMLM works great for large mailing lists. It sends out messages in parallel for faster delivery and does not use extra memory for large lists.

Sophisticated Bounce Handling

EZMLM uses Qmail's VERP feature to reliably determine which subscribers' emails are bouncing. EZMLM will not remove the bouncing subscriber immediately but will instead wait twelve days, then notify the subscriber of which emails were missed. If this also bounces, ezmlm will send a probe email. If the probe bounces too then the subscriber will finally be removed from the list. This process ensures that your subscriber list will not be wiped out due to any temporary errors.

Message Archiving

EZMLM can archive all messages. It doesn't put them on a webpage like Mailman, but the archives messages are sequentially numbered and can be quickly retrieved via email.

Manage your Lists in Qmailadmin

You can manage your EZMLM mailing lists through Qmailadmin, the same interface that you use to configure email accounts, vacation messages, forwards and autoresponders (mail robots). Each domain is limited to 1-5 EZMLM mailing lists each, but if you need more please email Support.

To Add a Mailing List

Login to qmailadmin at qma.highspeedrails.com. on the main menu, under quick links, select the "New Mailing List" option.

This will bring you to the Add Mailing Lists screen. We'll go through the options one by one.

Mailing List Name

This is the "handle" of your mailing list. You should use a name without spaces or dashes (-). This handle will be the first part of the posting address for your list: handle@domain.com.

List Owner Address

The List Owner Address is your email address, or the email address of the person who will act as the owner/administrator of the list.

Prefix outgoing subject headers with

This enables you to put some text at the beginning of the subject of each list message that is sent out, for example [mary's recipes] or [plone-users]. This is optional.

Posting Messages

This allows you to set your list posting policy.

Anyone can post. - Your list is entirely open and will shortly be overrun with spammers. Not recommended.

Only subscribers can post, all others bounce. - Only those who are receiving list messages can post. An open discussion list. Non-list-members' emails are bounced back to them.

Only subscribers can post, all others go to moderators for approval. - Only those who are receiving list messages can post. An open discussion list. Non-list-members' emails are sent to the moderator so he can potentially allow them to be posted. This is good for a discusson list.

Only moderators can post, all others bounce. - Only those designated as moderators can post. Anyone else's emails are bounced back to them. This is good for a one-way, or announcement-type, mailing list.

Only moderators can post, all messages go to moderators for approval. - Only those designated as moderators can post. Anyone else's emails are sent to the moderator so he can potentially allow them to be posted.

List Options

Replies should go to ... the original sender - This setting is good for announcement lists where you want people to reply right back to you, and you are sending the emails.

Replies should go to ... the entire list - This is appropriate for discussion lists.

Replies should go to ... the address - If yours is an announcement list and you want people to reply back to say your support email so you can reply to them from there and archive your messages, then you can select this option and input the email where you want replies to go to in the text filed.

Include a trailer at the end of each message. - You should always check this box. This will add a note about the list at the bottom of each email, including the email address for leaving the list.

Set up a digest version of the list - If you would also like to add a digest version of your list, check this box. A digest sends groups of list messages to subscribers, instead of sending each message out as it comes in. Digests are generated for every 30 messages or 64Kb of message body.

Service requests sent to listname-request. - This a good idea to enable as it gives subscribers another way to control their subscription.

Remote Administration

Allow remote administration by moderators. - This will allow moderators to administer the mailing list via email. Its recommended you check this box.

Make this a private list. - This will make the list entirely private. Only moderators can add and remove subscribers. Its only recommended you use this option if your list is an internal one for your company or organization.

Remote admins can ... View and search the subscriber list. - If you trust your moderators then you can check this.

Remote admins can ... Edit files in the text directory. - If you would like your moderators to be able to adjust the list footer, faq, info blurb and other available list information, then enable this. Its recommended that you enable it.

Subscription Requests

Requests to subscribe to the list ... Require confirmation by a reply to a message sent to the subscription address. - This is a good idea, so that you make sure people really opt-in.

Requests to subscribe to the list ... Require the approval of a moderator. - If you operate a discussion list and want to monitor who is subscribing, this is a good idea.

Requests to unsubscribe from the list ... Require confirmation by a reply to a message sent to the subscription address. - This is good idea to prevent one person from unsubscribing another, without their knowledge.

Message Archives

Archive list messages. - This is always a good idea.

Index archive for web access via ezmlm-cgi. - You should select this, in case we deploy ezmlm-cgi in the future.

Archive retrieval is ... - this depends on how private your list is.

MySQL Settings

This feature is not currently available.

Submit

Now click the 'Add' button and Qmailadmin will bring you to the Mailing Lists screen, where you can see your mailing lists and manage each one individually. You can also reach this screen by clicking on Main Menu > Mailing Lists.

Management Options

Delete - You can delete the list by clicking on the trashcan. Be careful, there is no undo button!

Modify - You can click on the pen and paper icon to revisit the configuration options we discussed above.

The options for managing subscribers, moderators and the digest version, if you have created one, are self-explanatory.

NB: You should avoid manually adding subscribers who have not explicitly agreed to join your list.

How Subscribers Interact with your Mailing List

Subscribe

To subscribe, a person simply sends an email to listname-subscribe@example.com from the email address he or she wishes to subscribe with.

Unsubscribe

The unsubscription command is similar: listname-unsubscribe@example.com

More Commands

People can also retrieve general information about the list, a FAQ, archived emails and more, if you allow them. See the link to ezmlm.org at the end of this document for more information.

Remote Administration (via Email)

Remote administration means that you can administer your list via an email interface, instead of a web-based one like what you find in a program like Mailman or MojoMail. Moderators can add or remove subscribers, retrieve a subscriber list, the number of subscribers and edit list-related files, among other things, with simple email commands.

list

Moderators can send an email to listname-list@example.com to get a subscriber list.

listn

Moderators can send an email to listname-listn@example.com to get the total number of subscribers.

edit

Moderators can send an email to listname-edit@example.com to get a list of editable files.

edit.filename

Moderators can send an email to listname-edit.filename@example.com to edit the editable file called filename.

For example, if you wanted to make a FAQ available to subscribers, you could write one and put it in the body of an email. Now send that email to listname-edit.faq@example.com. When an email is now sent to listname-faq@example.com, EZMLM will reply with your FAQ.

There are other commands as well. See the link to ezmlm.org at the end of this document for more information.

Digest Administration

To manage your digest "sub-list", you can use the same commands as for the main list, but using listname-digest instead of listname.

Moderation

When required, moderation is straightforward and easy. The moderator receives an email with the moderated email attached. To approve the email he or she can simply reply with a blank email. To reject, you can manually reply to the From header address. Sending a message to listname-help@example.com will provide some additional information on moderating.

Retrieving Archived Emails

Your list's archived emails can be retrieved via email.

Message Index

To get the message index, send an email to listname-index@example.com.

Retrieve Single Message

To get a single message, you will need to know its number. Once you have the number, you can send a blank email to listname-get.1@example.com.

Range of Messages

Each archived message is numbered from 1 on up. So you can retrieve any range of messages. For example. to retrieve messages 1-99, send an email to listname-get.1_99@example.com.

There are still more ways to retrieve messages. See the link to ezmlm.org at the end of this document for more information.

Web Access to the Archives

We are looking into this and may or may not be able to offer it. In the meantime you can always grab your archives via email.

More Information

EZMLM has even more useful features and security safeguards than what is described above. Find out more about EZMLM at ezmlm.org

Questions?

Please contact us with your questions and we will get back to you right away.