Email at SYC

Email at SYC falls into two categories; the administrative email accounts, such as catering@seattleyachtclub.org, hosted by InterTel and the membership lists, such as web-team@lists.seattleyachtclub.org, hosted by Nidelven IT.

As the result of moving our website to a hosting service with Nidelven IT we are able to separate the membership lists out on a new subdomain, lists.seattleyachtclub.org.  Email on this new subdomain will be hosted by Nidelven IT while the administrative accounts will remain with InterTel to minimize rocking of the boat.

The upshot is that all of the old email lists have been moved off seattleyachtclub.org to lists.seattleyachtclub.org.  For example, the Internet Committee alias, web-team@seattleyacheclub.org, is now be web-team@lists.seattleyachtclub.org.  Forwarding aliases for each of the existing lists have been created on the seattleyachtclub.org domain so that users can continue using the old list address.  Future lists should simply use the lists.seattleyachtclub.org subdomain and no forwards should be required.

The benefits of moving lists into their own subdomain include the ability to provide a management interface to individuals who own the various lists.  These individuals will no longer be required to relay requests from users to the Internet Committee and wait for changes to be made.  They will be able to update the lists themselves, or better yet instruct the user how to make the change.

A Day in the Life...

For the remainder of this discussion it will be helpful to understand how an email message travels through the system.

1. A user composes a piece of mail addressed to a list at lists.seattleyachtlcub.org.  We'll use web-team@lists.seattleyachtclub.org as an example.
2. When the user sends the message their email client software forwards it to the user configured SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server.  This is typically owned by the user's ISP (Internet Service Provider).
3. The SMTP server determines how to route the mail to its final destination by asking an Internet DNS (Dynamic Naming Service) server to resolve the destination domain in the email address (lists.seattleyachtclub.org) to an actual IP (Internet Protocol) address, which is a unique address for a server responsible for email traffic on a domain.  Once this address is acquired the email is forwarded to the server.  In the case of lists.seattleyachtclub.org this destination server is owned and operated by Nidelven IT.
4. The receiving server determines how to process the message.  In many cases it will be stored on the server in an email account's Inbox waiting to be picked up by a user the next time they download email.  In our case however Nidelven IT's server is configured to forward messages addressed to any of our lists to an associated MailBoxer object in our website.  "Huh?  What's a MailBoxer object", you ask?  We'll discuss MailBoxer below.  For now just accept that it is something on our website that handles email to lists.
   
5. The MailBoxer forwards the email message through Nidelven IT's SMTP server to all email addresses subscribed to the list.  Thus a single message is distributed to a number of interested individuals with no effort on the senders part.
   

The software we have chosen to manage our lists is called MailBoxer.  As with many of the solutions on our site it was written by a Plone enthusiast and is distributed free of charge.  You can find more information on the MailBoxer webpage.

MailBoxer is a collection of Python scripts which process email messages, create and maintain archives, provided management services to list owners and enforce security choices owners make for their lists.

Through MailBoxer SYC members can manage their own email list subscriptions.  To subscribe to or unsubscribe from a list one need simply send a piece of email from the email address in question to the list with 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the Subject: line.  The list server will send a response email with instructions to complete the request.

Creating a New Email List

Creating a new email list requires the following steps:

• Deciding on a name for the new list and determining the initial set of email addresses to add.
  
• Creating a MailBoxer object which will manage traffic on the list.
• Registering the new list address with Nidelven IT.
• Associating the new MailBoxer with the new list address.
  

Deciding on a name and set of addresses

By convention the name for a list serving a number of individuals with a common interest will end with '-list'.  A list serving the members of a group with a specific goal or task will end with '-team'.  List names should be all lowercase and if multiple words must be used they should be separated by a hyphen.  Examples include:

ai-list@lists.seattleyachtclub.org
web-team@lists.seattleyachtclub.org
binnacle@lists.seattleyachtclub.org
senior-sail-list@lists.seattleyachtclub.org

Please try to follow convention so that users can infer the intent of your list from its name and avoid sending off-topic mail.

The initial set of addresses for a list may be empty, or it may contain all the known addresses for individuals with an interest in the list.  This initial set of addresses will be pasted into a field in the MailBoxer setup form when the time comes, so it is best to assemble the addresses in a document from which they can easily be cut.  Obviously if the list is left empty users can subscribe to the list themselves as described in the MailBoxer section above.

Creating a MailBoxer object

By convention MailBoxer objects are contained in a folder called 'lists' on the SYC website.  The full path to the folder is http://www.seattleyachtclub.org/lists.  You will need to log into the site to view this folder.

At the time of writing there is not much to see in the default view of this folder.  Eventually it would be nice to provide a simple interface by which members can manage their subscriptions to the various lists contained therein.  For now hewever you must use the ZMI (Zope Management Interface) to see anything meaningful in this folder.

To reach the ZMI for this, or any, folder simply add '/manage' to the end of the URL, http://www.seattleyachtclub.org/lists/manage.  Your user account must be granted sufficient permissions to view the ZMI, but currently all accounts have those permissions in the lists folder so that users may create their own MailBoxer objects as needed.

Once in the ZMI, select the 'Mail Boxer' option in the dropdown list in the top right of the page, next to the 'Add' button.  Then click the 'Add' button.  You will be presented with a form to define the properties of your new MailBoxer.  Details of these properties can be found on the MailBoxer webpage, but they are briefly covered below:

ID - This value will be used by the website to refer to your new MailBoxer object but will rarely be seen by users.  By convention this is the email list address minus the '@lists.seattleyachtclub.org'.  For example, 'web-team'.

Title - This value will be seen by users and should be a short but descriptive name for your new list, such as 'Internet Committee Members'.

Email - This is the full email address of your list, such as 'web-team@lists.seattleyachtclub.org'.

Moderator - This is the email address(s) of the list owner(s).  A small amount of management email may be sent to this address over the life of the list.  In the case of a moderated list (which we will discuss later) this list defines who is able to send mail to the list.  Mail from any other source will be bounced back to the sender.

SMTP-Host - This field should be left blank for all SYC lists.  They are automatically configured to use Nidelven IT's SMTP servers.

MTA-Hosts - This field must be set to '82.117.37.108'.  This is Nidelven IT's MTA host server address and will be the same for all SYC email lists.

Moderated List - If checked only email addresses listed in the Moderator field will be allowed to send mail to this list.  This is a strong security measure, but may limit the usefulness of the list for its subscribers.  Think about how you expect the list to be used before selecting this choice.  If it is strictly for sending out information from a single source this may be the right choice.

Archive - The MailBoxer can maintain a copy of all email sent to its list, which can be useful if someone wants to refer back to mail they have deleted, would like to catch up on mail sent before they subscribed or wants to monitor traffic on a list without actually subscribing.  You can specify that only the text of the messages be saved, or the text plus any attachments.  Obviously saving only the text will require less storage space on the server.

Any of the values you enter at this point can be changed later so don't worry if you're not 100% certain of the right entry.  Just take your best shot.

Click the 'Add' button and you will see your new MailBoxer listed in the folder contents.

Click on the new MailBoxer to reach its management pages.

Click on the 'Properties' tab.

Here you will find the settings which control how the email list will behave.  We won't go into detail on these settings here, you can find more information at the MailBoxer webpage.

There is one setting that should be changed from its default.  Scroll down to the 'batchsize' field and enter a value of '20'.

Now you're MailBoxer is ready for use.

Registering the New List with Nidelven IT

The next step is to create an actual email address to be hosted on Nidelven IT's server.  This is acheived through a website at https://mailadmin.mailgateway.no.  You will need to log onto the site using the following credentials:

EMail: admin@seattleyachtclub.org
Password: <request from internet-chair@lists.seattleyachtclub.org>

Once logged on, click the 'Add account to this site' link.

In the 'Name of account owner' field enter a descriptive name for your new list, such at 'Member List'.  This is similar to the 'Title' field mentioned above.

In the 'Name of account' field enter the list name you chose such as 'web-team'.

In the 'Password for account' just enter 'nilmah' which we use as a convention for all such accounts.  You will not use this password again.

Click 'Submit' and your new list address is created.

Click on the 'account list' shortcut on the resulting page and proceed with the next step.

Associating Your MailBoxer with the List Address

The last step is to make the connection between your new list address and the MailBoxer object you created on the SYC website.  To do so you must provide the mailboxer URL.

Find your account in the list and click the edit icon toward the right of the table.  It looks like a little screwdriver and wrench crossed.

Choose the 'Set mailboxer URL' link toward the bottom of the next page.

Type or paste the path to your mailboxer, such as:

http://incognito.nidelven-it.no:10080/plone/path_to_mailboxer/mailboxer-id/manage_mailboxer

where:

<path_to_mailboxer> is the folder path to your new MailBoxer inside the website, such as 'lists'.
<mailboxer_id> is the value you entered in the ID field when creating your MailBoxer above.

For example, the configuration string for the web-team list is:

http://incognito.nidelven-it.no:10080/plone/lists/web-team/manage_mailboxer

Click 'Submit' and the email list is ready to go!  Time to send out your welcome mail.