About Mailing Lists

Mailing lists are also called aliases or mail aliases. The System Administrator role creates a mailing list by giving the list a name and adding email addresses to the list, separating the addresses by commas. When someone sends email to a mailing list, the email goes to all specified addresses.

To add a new mailing list, double-click the Mailing Lists tool and choose Action->Add Mailing List.

To delete a mailing list, double-click the Mailing Lists tool, select the name of the mailing list, and use the right (menu) mouse button to choose Delete from the pull-down menu.

To view, add, or delete recipients, double-click the name of a mailing list to open it. The names of all recipients display in the Mailing List Recipients field.

To add or delete a recipient, click the name of the mailing list, and then Action->Properties, and type the address into or remove the address from the Mailing List Recipients field. For more about the types of recipients you can add, see also, Adding Different Types of Recipients.

To copy one or more user names into the mailing list, do the following.

  1. Double-click the User Accounts tool.
  2. Choose Action->Copy to Group or Mailing List.
  3. Double-click the Mailing List tool in the navigation pane.
  4. Double-click the name of a mailing List.
  5. Choose Action->Paste User(s) into Mailing List.
  6. Changes to the Mailing Lists dialog are saved in the local aliases(4) file, or in the equivalent NIS map or NIS+ table, depending on the name service (or "scope") chosen for the SMC tool being executed.

    Adding Different Types of Recipients

    You can include four types of email recipients in a mailing list (separate them by commas):

    An individual address

    An individual address can be local (user1) or remote (user1@company.com).

    The name of a file to which the message is to be appended

    If the name of a recipient starts with a slash (/), the name is a file. Each email message addressed to that recipient's mailing list is attached to the end of the last message received by the file.

    For example, when /usr/share/archive.txt appears as a recipient in the "Accounting" mailing list, every email message sent to Accounting is appended to the archive.txt file.

    The name of a file containing additional addresses

    If you create a file of email addresses, you can include those addresses in the mailing list by starting with ":include:" followed by a path and the name of the file with the addresses.

    For example, when :include:/home/user1/mylist.txt is a recipient, a message sent to the mailing list will be mailed to all email addresses in the mylist.txt file.

    (In the :include: file, either enter a separate email address on each line, or include multiple addresses on a line and separate the addresses with commas.)

    The name of a program to run

    You can include in the list of recipients a program that runs when the mailing list receives an email. The program, for example, might sort by subject all email sent to the mailing list. The program must begin with a pipe (|).

    The program and its arguments can take the form of:

    |program

    "|program args"

    "|program"

    |"program"

    |"program args"

    Each program must have a fully-qualified name, starting with /(slash); for example, |"/home/jsmith/someprogram arg1 arg2"

    Example Mailing List

    All four types of email recipients can appear in one mailing list.

    For example, an email message sent to the following example mailing list would be:

    Example mailing list:

    user1@thebusiness.com,/usr/share/archive.txt,:include:/home/user1/mylist.txt, "|/usr/local/bin/notify root@mailhost"

    Required Mailing Lists

    Two mailing lists must always be assigned at least one email recipient: Postmaster and MAILER-DAEMON. Neither can be deleted.

    Postmaster

    Postmaster is the mailing list users can write to when they have questions or problems regarding email on the mail server. The default email recipient is "root," but you can substitute or add the email address of the person responsible for handling email problems.

    MAILER-DAEMON

    MAILER-DAEMON is the email address users see when undeliverable email is returned, and users often send return mail to MAILER-DAEMON requesting assistance. The default MAILER-DAEMON recipient is "Postmaster." You can include the email address of the person responsible for handling email problems. Or, if you want to discard all email addressed to MAILER-DAEMON, place /dev/null in Mailing List Recipients.