I've set it (correctly I think) on our server, to collect email addresses for a company newsletter. I've downloaded the manual and read it over and over, but when I send X-Commands and try to distribute a newsletter, absolutely nothing happens.

I've spent hours trying to figure out what it is I'm doing wrong [...]

One thing to check for: The X-Command has to be in the _header_ of e-mail message sent to list-request@domain.com. Some mail clients won't let you add your own custom header lines, or they make it difficult.

I modified the way X-Command works, to support list admin commands in the _body_ of the message. The logic checks to see if the from address matches the list maintainer address, and if it does, it allows the list commands. I didn't add a password check, but that would have been straightforward as well. The list maintainer check can be easily generalized to allow more than one maintainer.

The mod is in rc.request, just ahead of the recipe that already handles X-Command. Here's the logic:

# # Or is it a special remote "admin" command from the maintainer? #

:0 H wf:dist.lock * $^From:.*$maintainer * ^Subject:.*admin * $!^X-Loop: $listaddr * $!^X-Loop-Admin: $listaddr | do_admin

which is inserted just ahead of this part of the recipe:

# # Or is it a remote X-Command from our maintainer? #

:0 H wf:dist.lock * $^$X_COMMAND:.*$maintainer[ ]*$X_COMMAND_PASSWORD * $!^X-Loop: $listaddr | x_command

The extra logic looking for X-Loop-Admin checks for the cases where mail to the maintainer is looping. This can happen sometimes, and when it does, bad things happen.

The "do_admin" script is in in the .bin directory, and is a slight variation on "x_command":

#! /bin/sh :

echo=echo # /bin/echo test=test # /bin/test cat=cat # /bin/cat rm=rm # /bin/rm formail=formail # /usr/local/bin/formail subscribe=subscribe # ../.bin/subscribe unsubscribe=unsubscribe # ../.bin/unsubscribe multigram=multigram # ../.bin/multigram

tmprequest=tmp.request tmpfrom=tmp.from dist=dist log=log

$test -z "$listaddr" && $echo "Don't start this script directly, it is used in rc.request" && exit 64

X_ENVELOPE_TO=$list-request # to convince (un)subscribe we used the right export X_ENVELOPE_TO # address

$cat >$tmprequest $formail -a X-Processed: <$tmprequest

set dummy `egrep '^(subscribe|unsubscribe|checkdist|showdist|showlog|help|info|wipelog|version)' < $tmprequest` shift

while $test $# != 0 do case "_$1" in _subscribe|_unsubscribe|_checkdist) if $test $# = 1 then $echo "X-Diagnostic: Missing argument for $1" set help fi;; esac case "_$1" in _subscribe) $echo "From $2 " >$tmprequest $echo "From: request ($listreq)" >>$tmprequest $echo "Reply-To: $2" >>$tmprequest $echo "To: $listreq" >>$tmprequest $echo "Subject: subscribe $2" >>$tmprequest $echo "$2" >$tmpfrom $test -z "$subscribe_log" || $echo "x_command: subscribe" >>$subscribe_log $subscribe <$tmprequest || $echo "X-Diagnostic: Unscreened, not subscribed" shift ;; _unsubscribe) $echo "From $2 " >$tmprequest $echo "From: $listreq" >>$tmprequest $echo "Reply-To: $2" >>$tmprequest $echo "To: $listreq" >>$tmprequest $echo "Subject: unsubscribe $2" >>$tmprequest $echo "$maintainer" "$2" >$tmpfrom $test -z "$subscribe_log" || $echo "x_command: unsubscribe" >>$subscribe_log $unsubscribe <$tmprequest | $SENDMAIL $sendmailOPT `cat $tmpfrom` shift ;; _checkdist) $echo "Multigram checking the dist file for matches with" $echo "$2:" $echo "" $echo "From $2" | $multigram -b8 -l-32767 dist $echo "" shift ;; _showdist) $echo "--- Current subscribers:" $cat $dist $echo "--- End of subscriber list" ;; _showlog) $echo "--- Current log:" $cat $log $echo "--- End of log" ;; _wipelog) $cat /dev/null >$log ;; _version) flist -v 2>&1 echo "" procmail -v 2>&1 ;; _help|_info) $echo "Known $X_COMMAND keywords:" $echo " subscribe mailaddress" $echo " unsubscribe mailaddress" $echo " checkdist mailaddress" $echo " showdist" $echo " showlog" $echo " wipelog" $echo " version" $echo " help" $echo " info" ;; *) $echo "X-Diagnostic: Unknown command $1" ; set dummy help ;; esac shift done

The key differences between "do_admin" and and "x_commend" are below. The lines with exclamation points,

$cat >$tmprequest ! $formail -R$X_COMMAND: X-Processed: <$tmprequest ! set dummy `$formail -x$X_COMMAND: <$tmprequest` ! shift; shift ! test "_$X_COMMAND_PASSWORD" = "_$1" && shift

while $test $# != 0 do case "_$1" in

are replaced with these:

$cat >$tmprequest ! $formail -a X-Processed: <$tmprequest ! set dummy `egrep '^(subscribe|unsubscribe|checkdist|showdist|showlog|help|info |wipelog|version)' < $tmprequest` ! shift

Basically, instead of looking for X-Commmand in the header, and then extracting the commands from those lines, the script looks for the commands as the appearing in the first column, and then works through those commands one-at-time as the previous script did. The password handling was removed, but with a little work could be added back in. For now, the check for the maintainer address is considered to be sufficient, though this could be spoofed, and something more robust is desirable for production use. The advantage of allowing the commands in the body of the message is that the user who is managing the list can use any mail client, and doesn't need to figure out how to create custom header lines.

Here's an example of an admin message processed by the method described above:

From: list_manager@domain.com To: list-request@list_domain.com Subject: admin

unsubscribe old_user_address@old.com subscribe new_user_addr@new.com showdist