[Mailman-Users] Digest options -> list configuration

[Alan.Rubin at nt.gov.au]

Mark/All,

So, if digest_send_periodic is No (so that digests are not sent every day as
indicated by the default senddigests cron entry), senddigests will not force the
list to send a new digest even with the -l option?  If you host many lists and
one list/customer wants messages sent only on a specific schedule, and you don't
want to degrade the ability for the entire list server, then the only real
option is to cook up some recipe which keeps mail intended for the list in a
separate queue and only gets added to the list at the time that you want a
digest created and sent?

To be more specific about my scenario, we are attempting to migrate from
Majordomo to Mailman.  We have a list that sends out change control
notifications on a twice weekly basis.  In the majordomo configuration,
individual messages are collected in a work folder and when a Perl script called
'digests', written for majordomo, is run from cron, the messages in the work
folder are gathered into a single digest message and sent to the list
subscribers.

Perhaps I am taking the wrong approach with Mailman?  Is there another way to
deliver a similar service without cooking up my own scheme, or has someone
already contributed such a tool/scheme?

Regards,

Alan Rubin
Technician Unix
DCS Midrange Services
Phone: +61 (08) 8999 6814
Fax:      +61 (08) 8999 7493
e-Mail: alan.rubin at nt.gov.au


                                                                                
             Mark Sapiro                                                        
             <mark at msapiro.net>                                                 
                                                                             To 
             07/08/2008 12:18 AM         Alan.Rubin at nt.gov.au,                  
                                         mailman-users at python.org               
                                                                             cc 
                                                                                
                                                                        Subject 
                                         Re: [Mailman-Users] Digest options ->  
                                         list configuration                     
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                




Alan.Rubin at nt.gov.au wrote:
>
>If these lines occur in mailman's crontab -
>
># Noon, mail digests for lists that do periodic as well as threshhold delivery.
>0 12 * * * /opt/csw/bin/python -S /export/home/mailman/cron/senddigests
>
>how will lists with digests enabled be affected?  If the list has a high
>threshold, will it still have the contents of its digest sent?


If digest_send_periodic is Yes, and the list has had at least one post
since the last digest, a digest will be sent when cron/senddigests
runs.


>Do options in
>the configuration take precedence over the script?


The only configuration option that affects cron/senddigests is
digest_send_periodic which controls whether or not cron/senddigests
will send a digest for this list.


>If the intention is to
>schedule sending of digests from cron for a particular list on specific days
>only, will the script send the digest regardless of the threshold?


Yes


>And, if you
>disable the cronjob above, how will that affect any other lists on the mail
>server where users arbitrarily choose to receive digests and list owners allow
>this?


If you disable cron/senddigests, no periodic digests will be sent for
any list. If you change the schedule, it will affect all lists.

You can run cron/senddigests for specific lists with a "-l listname"
option (run 'cron/senddigests -h' for info) so you could set up your
crontab to run 'cron/senddigests -l list1' on one schedule and
'cron/senddigests -l list2' on another, but the problem is there's no
"all lists except ..." option, so it becomes cumbersome.

--
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan