Ask SIPB - September 23, 2008

This week's column covers email and mailing lists at MIT.
Mailing lists are used for all sorts of things here, and IS&T has placed a large amount of control over mailing lists in the hands of students -- we can even create our own mailing lists! Whether you want to get access to loads of free stuff (reuse@mit.edu and freefood@mit.edu), or want to follow the latest on your dorm's discussion list (ask your neighbor if you don't know already), you'll need to deal with mailing lists in some form.

How do I manage my mailing list subscriptions?

First, you have to know what type of mailing list it is. There are two types of mailing lists at MIT, Moira lists and Mailman lists. To test if a list is a Mailman list, try the command

athena% blanche -i LISTNAME

and see if it contains something like

reuse is a Mailman list on server PCH.MIT.EDU

If there is no mention of Mailman in the output, the list is a Moira list.

Moira

Moira lists (also known as traditional or Athena lists) can be used as mailing lists, as well as to give a group of people access to web pages and Athena directories. From Athena, an easy way to access Moira lists is by using the mailmaint command, which gives you a menu you can navigate with the arrow keys. Type

athena% mailmaint

(If you don't have an "athena%" terminal window open, click the button at the lower left labeled "Prompt".)
Alternately, you can use the "blanche" command. To add yourself to the "cluedump-announce" list, if your username is "joeuser", type:

athena% blanche cluedump-announce -a joeuser

To delete yourself from the list, use "-d" instead of "-a"; to view the members of the list (if the list isn't hidden), just type "blanche cluedump-announce".

If you have a web browser and MIT certificates, a third way to manage your lists is by going to webmoira.mit.edu.

If you want to create your own list, you can do so online at wserv.mit.edu/lc. Fill out a form, and the list will be available immediately for use with commands such as blanche. You can also use this website to create Mailman lists (see below).

Note that changes to the mailing lists are only sent to the mail servers approximately every 3–4 hours. You can determine when the last mailing list update was by running the "lastupd" command (in the consult locker, so you may need to type add consult first). The command lastupd mailhub contains a bit more information about the mailhubs in particular.

Our November 22, 2002 column has much more detail on manipulating Moira lists.

Mailman

Mailman lists are an alternative to Moira lists. They're less integrated with Athena, but they have a fancier web interface, including automatic list archives and the ability to hold messages for moderation. To subscribe or unsubscribe from a Mailman list, visit the website

http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/LISTNAME

(replacing LISTNAME with the name of the appropriate list, of course).

What is this "Spamscreen" folder? Can I spam-filter my e-mail?

MIT runs two spam-filtering products: the open-source SpamAssassin, and its commercial cousin, the Barracuda Spam Firewall. These products assign a score ranging from -5.0 (or below, in rare cases) to beyond 25.0 (for particularly egregious spam specimens) to every e-mail. By default, if this score is above 7.5, the e-mail goes to your Spamscreen folder and is deleted after 10 days.

You can configure this threshold and delay, as well as set up blacklists and whitelists (to ensure that particular e-mail addresses are always or never filtered), at the following website:

http://nic.mit.edu/cgi-bin/spamscreen

To ask us a question, send email to sipb@mit.edu. We'll try to answer you quickly, and we can address your question in our next column. You can also stop by our office in W20-557 or call us at x3-7788 if you need help. Copies of each column and pointers to additional information are posted on our website: http://www.mit.edu/~asksipb/