This page describes how to set up and manage mailing lists on your domain.

Request a Mailing List

If you would like a mailing list managed by our global Mailman installation, you must first follow the setup instructions below to tweak your DomTool configuration, and then place a request on the portal. If you do things in this order, the portal will be able to correctly deduce what URL you want for the web interface of the new mailing list.

Setup Instructions

You then have a choice between doing list management at https://lists.hcoop.net/admin/LISTNAME or at your own domain.

Using https://lists.hcoop.net/ for the web interface

If you are fine with using the main hcoop.net site for your list's web interface, then there is nothing left to do before making a list request on the portal and wait for the list to be created.

You can then access your list at https://lists.hcoop.net/admin/LISTNAME, where LISTNAME is the name of your list.

If you requested a list where the address will be at your own domain, even if you are using lists.hcoop.net for the management URL, you will need to add the following line

• mailmanWebHost "lists.hcoop.net";

to your domtool configuration for that domain. In addition to configuring the Mailman web interface, it also configures the mail server to forward incoming mail to Mailman for processing.

Using your own domain for the web interface

If you would like the web interface to be at your own domain, then you must do some simple domain configuration.

• $LISTNAME is the name you gave your list,

• $DOMAIN is your domain,

• $VHOST is the virtual subdomain you would like the web interface to be accesible from.

• $USER is your HCoop username.

If you want to access the site from your domain with no subdomain, then use the default virtual host for $VHOST (in other words, "www").

domain "$DOMAIN" with
  (* Other configuration stuff...  *)

  mailman "$VHOST";

  (* Do the following if you want the email address given on *)
  (* http://$VHOST.$DOMAIN/listinfo to work. *)
  handleMail;
  emailAlias "mailman" "$USER";
end;

Now request the list using the portal. The list admin web interface then will be available at http://$VHOST.$DOMAIN/admin/$LISTNAME.

Be sure to change the host_name setting for the list to be "$DOMAIN" (namely, your domain name) using the list admin web interface, or messages sent to that list will come from the wrong domain!

If you want to do anything more complicated than the above, read on.

Putting the list email address and web interface on different domains

Say you want to receive email to a list at mylist@emailsub.domain.tld, but you want the web interface for the list to be at http://lists.domaintwo.tld. Here is how you accomplish that.

• Make sure that you have been granted the domaintwo.tld domain.

• Add the following domtool configuration

  domain "domaintwo.tld" with
    mailmanVhost "lists";
  end;
  
  domain "domain.tld" with
    mailmanWebHost "lists.domaintwo.tld";
  end;

• Tell MichaelOlson to update your list url to http://lists.domaintwo.tld, by filing a request in the portal with the "list" category.

Permitting email for the same list to be delivered to multiple domains

Say you have a list called "listname". If you want to permit email from both "listname@domain.tld" and "listname@domaintwo.tld", then you will need to do the following.

• Choose a "canonical" domain, between the two. Mailman will only get the links correct on the web interface with this domain name. We will denote the other domain as the secondary domain.
• Add a "mailmanVhost" line to the domtool configuration for each domain, or make one domain an alias of the other. The canonical domain should not be an alias. In the case that you are adding a "mailmanVhost" line, be sure that the canonical domain comes before the secondary domain.

• Using the web interface, edit acceptable_aliases to include a regexp like

  ^listname@domaintwo\.tld$

• File a request on the "list" category of the portal, mentioning that you want to do this, and mention which domain is the canonical one. MichaelOlson will take care of the rest.

Hosting Domains Elsewhere

You can host mailing lists with us that use your own domains, even if your domain is primarily hosted elsewhere.

The best way of doing this is for you to point your domain's MX record to mail.hcoop.net. If you want to use the Mailman webinterface on a subdomain, then be sure to point that subdomain at mail.hcoop.net.

Migrating an Existing List

If you previously hosted a mailing list on Fyodor, our old machine, then file a request at Our bug-tracker, using the Mailman component. Be sure to tell us what the name of your list is.

If you haven't hosted a mailing list with us before, it is still possible to migrate a list over to our machines, provided that you have an mbox file containing the archives, and the file config.pck containing your settings. File a request at Our bug-tracker, using the Mailman component, and we will help you out.

CategoryMemberManual