$Id: README,v 1.2 2000/09/25 17:57:21 guy Exp $
=================
| ezmlm-web-2.2 |
=================
If you only want to know how to install ezmlm-web, then you should
read INSTALL.
Contents
========
I. Copyright Stuff
II. Some Background
III. Requirements
IV. Files
V. Notes
VI. Multi-level list access
VII. Language Portability
VIII. Bugs && Bug Reports
XI. Acknowledgements
X. Availability
I. Copyright Stuff - essentially the FreeBSD licence ...
==================
ezmlm-web - version 2.2 - 26/01/02005
Copyright (C) 1998, Guy Antony Halse, All Rights Reserved.
Please send bug reports and comments to guy-ezmlm@rucus.ru.ac.za
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither name Guy Antony Halse nor the names of any contributors may be used
to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific
prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS
IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
II. Some Background
===================
The need for ezmlm-web arose from the fact that we host many student
societies on our system. These societies usually have a virtual host for web
and email, which is administered by a computer rep from the society. These
computer reps often have little or no knowledge of Unix and so we needed a
user friendly system that would let the create and maintain mailing lists
(such as members@foo.soc.ru.ac.za, committee@foo.soc.ru.ac.za, etc).
Since I am never keen to re-invent the wheel, I had a look at Steve Peterson's
script (http://virtation.com/qmail/ml-sub), which allows people to subscribe
and unsubscribe from mailing lists using a form->email gateway. This is fine
for putting on a web page saying "here come and join our mailing list", but
doesn't really allow you to administrate a list.
Security of mailing lists was a concern, as we really didn't want
unauthorised people to be able to alter some users list. Ezmlm-web itself
implements no security checks (apart from un-tainting input) and so relies
on the web server to do this (re-inventing the wheel again :). We use an
Apache webserver, so one can control access to a directory using a .htaccess
file or in the access.conf file. ApacheWeek have a good article on doing
this at http://www.apacheweek.com/features/userauth. I also give examples
later in this document.
This version of ezmlm-web is based to a large extent on previous
versions that I have developed. It has however been totally re-written to
make use of the Mail::Ezmlm perl module I wrote. At the same time it was
updated and extended to include the new features of ezmlm-idx. It includes
many new features that have been suggested to me over the last few months,
and hopefully is now useful to a much larger group of people.
Since 02005 ezmlm-web is maintained by Lars Kruse (ezmlm-web@sumpfralle.de).
Only minor improvements had to be implemented to keep the already fully
functional ezmlm-web up to date.
III. Requirements
=================
This version of ezmlm-web requires the following;
* qmail v1.03
* ezmlm v0.53 (idx v0.40)
* Perl v5.004 and the following modules;
+ Mail::Ezmlm v0.03
+ Mail::Address v1.15
+ CGI v2.6
+ CGI::Carp v1.06
+ DB_File v1.65
+ Getopt::Std v4.1
+ File::Find v?
+ File::Copy v2.02
The version number indicates the version of the module that ezmlm-web was
developed with. Earlier versions may work, but then they haven't been
tested. Have a look on http://www.CPAN.org/, http://www.qmail.org/, and
http://www.ezmlm.org/ for anything you are missing.
IV. Files
=========
In this distribution you should find 8 files;
README This file. Provides some background information.
Not needed to run ezmlm-web.
INSTALL Notes on installation. Not needed to run ezmlm-web.
CHANGES The change history. Not needed to run ezmlm-web
TODO This file is a list of things I intend doing in future
versions of ezmlm-web. Not needed to run ezmlm-web.
ezmlm-web.cgi The ezmlm-web script proper. This program requires that
you have perl5 installed on your machine and that your web
server is capable of running CGI scripts.
index.c A C wrapper to allow ezmlm-web.cgi to run suid. Not
strictly necessary if your setup allows perl scripts to
run suid, but I prefer using wrappers anyway. It needs to
be edited and compiled to suit your system. Not needed to
run ezmlm-web.
ezmlmwebrc This is the configuration file for ezmlm-web. All options
are explained in this example file. You will need this
file to run ezmlm-web.
htaccess.sample A sample Apache .htaccess file for controlling access to
the mailing lists. If you use another web server, you will
have to work this bit out for yourself.
webusers.sample A sample webusers file for multi-level access control.
The directory "lang" contains the language files. You will need at least the
one, that you have choosen in "ezmlmwebrc" by the option "HTML_LANGUAGE".
V. Notes
=========
* There is a function to delete mailing lists, but I really don't like the
idea. The only reason I put it in is that bvi@rucus asked for it.
If you set $UNSAFE_RD = 0 (the default) in the config section, the
ezmlm-web won't actually delete the list. In this case it moves the <list>
to .<list> and all the associated .qmail files to a sub-directory called
deleted.qmail/ (In the users home directory. This is by far a safer way
(since you can restore lists) and therefore I recommend it.
* The HTML interface has been tested using Nutscrape, Internet Exploder, and
Lynx. If anyone uses anything else and has problems, please let me know.
* I suggest that you make use of custom ezmlmwebrc files rather than using
the -d command line switches - it makes fault diagnosis easier ...
* Please see the section on languages below.
VI. Multi-Level Access
=======================
Ezmlm-web has a multi-level access system. This depends on a file called
webusers being present in $LIST_DIR. If the file is not present, then any
valid user has access to all lists. If, however, this file exists a number
of constraints come into place.
- The webusers file is scanned for either the list name (case insensitive) or
an ALL (case sensitive) entry.
- The list entry (or ALL) is scanned for the current user (as set in
$REMOTE_USER) or an ALL entry.
- If any valid match is made, then the user is allowed to edit the list.
Otherwise the user is politely told to go away ;-)
If list creation is allowed and the webusers file exists, then the person who
creates the list is the default owner. As of yet there is no way to create users
through the web interface, but I intend to do this eventually.
The format of a webusers file is as follows;
list1: user1, user2, user3
ALL: user1, user2
list2: ALL
ie; listname colon (:) and a comma (,) separated list of users. Spaces are
ignored but each list must appear on a new line.
Once this file exists, the ezmlm-web script will allow the list users to
configure their access lists along with any other options.
You can permit some users to create lists by adding a line similar to the
following to your webusers file:
ALLOW_CREATE: user2, user3
If there is no line starting with "ALLOW_CREATE:" in the webusers file, then
no one will be allowed to create lists. This behaviour is new for ezmlm-web
since version 2.2. To stay compatible to old installations, the commandline
option "-c" for ezmlm-web.cgi will still allow everyone to create lists. The
use of this option is deprecated, since the line "ALLOW_CREATE: ALL" provides
the same effect in a cleaner way.
VII. Language Portablity
=========================
One of the great new features of version 2.0 is that it is essentially
language independant (okay, not quite, but is 99% of the way there). Most of
the fixed strings, help, etc is defined in the files of lang directory.
Of course you can change them or create a new translation.
The language can be selected in ezmlmwebrc with the "HTML_LANGUAGE" option.
If anyone gets round to writing full templates for languages I would
appreciate it if you would do two things;
Firstly, make them public and announce them on the ezmlm@lists.cr.yp.to
mailing list so that others may benefit.
Secondly, please mail me a copy (ezmlm-web@sumpfralle.de) so that I may use
them in any future releases of ezmlm-web.
VIII. Bugs && Bug Reports
=======================
I don't know of any bugs, but then this is a rewrite and a first release. It
has been tested reasonably well, but not exhaustively. I know it works on
FreeBSD 4.0-STABLE, FreeBSD 3.4-RELEASE, RedHat 5.1 and Redhat 6.0 all using
an Apache web server, but I would be interested to know whether it works on
other OSs and with other web servers. This version is far less dependent on
the OS than previous versions so I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.
Please mail bug reports and comments to ezmlm-web@sumpfralle.de.
IX. Acknowledgements
===================
* Guy Antony Halse (guy-ezmlm@rucus.ru.ac.za) - He created ezmlm-web,
maintained it till 02005 and wrote nearly every line of code!
* Keith Burdis (keith@rucus.ru.ac.za) - For constantly bugging me and
ensuring that I actually got round to writing some code :)
* Bryan Kilian (bryan@rucus.ru.ac.za) and the administrators of the
Litestep mailing list - For helping beta test and putting up with me
pestering them.
* Several societies at Rhodes. For switching to my web interface and so
unknowingly helping to beta test it.
* Barry Irwin (bvi@moria.org) - For trusting me and moving the Grahamstown
Foundation over to qmail and ezmlm - yet another beta tester :-)
* David Summers (david@summersoft.fay.ar.us) - For some ideas. And for
offering to make up an RPM version. I hope the offer still exists for
version 2.0 :-)
* Glen Stewart (glen_stewart@associate.com) - For a multitude of ideas.
* Fred Lindberg (lindberg@id.wustl.edu) for his useful posts to the
mailing list, suggestions, help, etc
* Galen Johnson (gjohnson@totalsports.net) - For some ideas on bugfixes.
X. Availability
=================
More information on ezmlm-web and developments to ezmlm-web can be found at:
https://systemausfall.org/toolforge/ezmlm-web
The website of Guy Antony Halse (the author of ezmlm-web) is still at:
http://rucus.ru.ac.za/~guy/ezmlm/
The old ftp-archive of ezmlm-web is still available on:
ftp://rucus.ru.ac.za/pub/mail/ezmlm/
