A LISTSERV How-To for Site Managers

Section 4 A LISTSERV How-To for Site Managers

This section is not intended to replace the LISTSERV FAQs available from L-Soft's documentation web site; instead, it is an attempt to bring together certain basic operations and how to accomplish them in one place. However, note that some of these how-to answers will redirect you to existing external documentation or to other sections of this manual in order to avoid duplication of effort.

4.1 Installation and Startup Questions

•	How do I install LISTSERV?

Installation guides are available on the web and are also shipped in the version-specific installation kits. You can read the guides on the web at:

http://www.lsoft.com/resources/manuals.asp

•	Why do I need a DNS A record and a static IP number for my LISTSERV machine?

The best analogy is to consider why you need to put a return address on a piece of postal mail that you expect someone to respond to (or to be returned to you if the person you are trying to reach no longer lives at the address you have for him). In order for people to be able to send mail to your server, it must have a "street address" so that the "postman" can deliver mail to it, and that "street address" must be known to the "post office" so that mail can be properly routed. The DNS A record tells the world where your LISTSERV machine is located by both its name (e.g. LISTSERV.EXAMPLE.COM) and its IP address, so that other mail machines on the Internet can correctly route mail to it. If the IP address is not static, in other words if it changes every time you dial up, or whenever you disconnect and reconnect your DSL service, it is not possible to add an A record for it to DNS. This is why both a static IP address and a DNS A record are required in order for LISTSERV to work properly.

•	Is there any way to make LISTSERV work on a machine with a dynamic IP?

Yes, if you subscribe to a service that provides dynamic DNS. There are several such services, some of them free. However, the configuration of dynamic DNS with your particular installation is outside of the scope of this manual, and L-Soft cannot help you with it.

•	Can LISTSERV read mail from POP mailboxes?

No. LISTSERV is designed to work with SMTP mail servers and is not able to read POP mailboxes.

•	How do I install the web archive/administration interface?

Please see either your version-specific installation guide or Section 5.4 Installing & Configuring LISTSERV’s WWW Archive & Administration Interface.

•	How do I start LISTSERV?

This is version specific and documented in the version-specific installation guides.

•	How do I stop or stop/restart LISTSERV?

LISTSERV site administrators can issue the STOP command from the "Issue a LISTSERV Command" page of the web administration interface.

It is possible under all ports of the software to immediately restart LISTSERV in a similar manner (for instance, to pick up configuration changes that require a restart) by issuing the STOP REBOOT command.

Alternate supported methods are to send e-mail from your POSTMASTER= address to LISTSERV@your server with the command

STOP PW=personal_password

STOP REBOOT PW=personal_password

in the body of the message, where "personal_password" is the personal password you have created for yourself for LISTSERV administration.¹

Under Windows, assuming that LISTSERV is running as a system service (which is the recommended method), you can also stop LISTSERV from the Control Panel/Services applet, or by issuing a NET STOP LISTSERV command from a DOS prompt (both of these assume that you are logged into the machine with administrative privileges).

Under unix, it is possible to stop LISTSERV by issuing a 'kill -TERM' command on the PID found in $LSVSPOOL/listserv.PID. However, this is not 100% guaranteed to kill all of the existing 'lsv' processes which may be running at the time (for instance you may end up with zombie processes left over from web interface queries), so L-Soft recommends that the e-mail method using the STOP command as documented above be used in preference to the 'kill -TERM' method from a shell prompt. It is vital that all 'lsv' processes be stopped before restarting LISTSERV, as the web interface may not properly re-initialize if this is not done.

LISTSERV also stops automatically when the system is rebooted, and depending on platform support and whether or not you have the system set to do so, may also be started automatically at boot time.

4.2 Initial Configuration

•	How do I add, change, and delete LISTSERV Maintainers (aka postmasters)?

LISTSERV Maintainers are defined by their e-mail addresses in the site configuration file, by setting the site configuration variable POSTMASTER=. This is normally done by opening the site configuration file in a text editor (never in a word processor or other non-flat-ASCII editor) and changing the value in the variable, then saving the file and stopping and restarting LISTSERV.

Windows sites can alternatively use the SITE.EXE configuration GUI to make these changes, but must also stop and restart LISTSERV after making the change.

Note: The syntax for the POSTMASTER= variable (like all other site configuration variables) differs from one OS platform to another. See the Site Configuration Keyword Reference document for examples.

•	How do I create passwords for postmasters, and what are they used for?

All commands are authenticated by the personal password associated with the LISTSERV maintainer's e-mail address. This password can be created in one of three ways:

•	Via the web interface, where a clickable password creation link will appear when you try to log in for the first time; or

•	Via mail, by using the PW ADD command documented elsewhere in this manual.

•	By another LISTSERV maintainer, using the PWC ADD command documented elsewhere in this manual.

Note: Some mailing list commands do not always require password authentication, depending on the setting of the Validate= list header keyword for the list in question. See the List Keyword Reference document for more information on how the various Validate= settings affect command authentication.

•	How do I make my first list?

Please see Section 8 List and Subscriber Management using the Web Interface or 15 Manually Creating and Maintaining Lists.

•	How do I delete a list?

LISTSERV maintainers can delete lists from the web administration interface.

•	Does LISTSERV have a GUI interface?

LISTSERV's GUI interface is its web administration/archive interface. Most site-level and most list-level functions can be accessed via the web interface.

It should be noted that STOP and SHUTDOWN are synonymous, and REBOOT and REIPL may also be used interchangeably. Therefore, STOP REBOOT, STOP REIPL, SHUTDOWN REBOOT and SHUTDOWN REIPL all have identical outcomes. Please also note that REBOOT in this context means to restart LISTSERV, not to reboot the entire machine.