How to create a Sympa list of list owners

[Steve Shipway]

Sometimes, I need to email all list owners on our list server, such as to
inform them of a scheduled outage or new features.



To do this, I've set up a Sympa mailing list that uses a SQL external
datasource to define its membership as being all list owners; I have then
used the exclude list to exclude myself from it.



Here's how to set up the external datasource:



include_sql_query

name list_owners

db_name sympa

passwd XXXXXX

db_type mysql

user sympa

sql_query SELECT DISTINCT `user_admin` FROM `admin_table` WHERE `role_admin`
= 'owner' order by `user_admin`

db_port 3306

host localhost



The passwd setting is the db_passwd from your sympa.conf; db_user, db_type,
db_host and db_name are also in there though I've used the default values
here as most people will have done.



You may also want to add "AND `reception_admin` = 'mail' " to the sql_query,
in case you want to exclude admins with nomail set.

sql_query SELECT DISTINCT `user_admin` FROM `admin_table` WHERE `role_admin`
= 'owner' AND `reception_admin` = 'mail' order by `user_admin`



This external datasource now means I have a list that will reliably email
all list owners at any particular time. I've also set mailmerge on the
list, and have a custom attribute to hold the list of listnames for which
they are owner; however to keep that in synch I've had to resort to an
external script that I run nightly. It does, however, let me email people
using mailmerge to give them the list of lists for which they are owner, in
case they have forgotten.



Hope someone finds this useful. comments and feedback welcome.



Steve



Steve Shipway

University of Auckland

UNIX Systems Design Team Lead

s.shipway-1/***@public.gmane.org

[phone] ext 86487

[David Verdin]

Thanks again for this tutorial Steve!

As a matter of fact, I wonder if it would be useful to simply add a
reserved address for owners in Sympa. After all, the software could
perfectly give this feature out of the box. Any listmaster needs to
contact list owners from time to time.

The problem is that probably a lot of people already use such a list.
And a lot of people might have a copletely different list called "owners".

So maybe we could create a parameter - yes, yet another - that would
contain the local part of the list to contact list owners - and mlaybe
alos another one to tell whether we should exclude list owners that
don't want to receive mails.

Juyst a thought.
Any feedback on this?

Cheers,

David

Post by Steve Shipway
Sometimes, I need to email all list owners on our list server, such as
to inform them of a scheduled outage or new features.
To do this, I’ve set up a Sympa mailing list that uses a SQL external
datasource to define its membership as being all list owners; I have
then used the exclude list to exclude myself from it.
include_sql_query
name list_owners
db_name sympa
passwd XXXXXX
db_type mysql
user sympa
sql_query SELECT DISTINCT `user_admin` FROM `admin_table` WHERE
`role_admin` = 'owner' order by `user_admin`
db_port 3306
host localhost
The passwd setting is the db_passwd from your sympa.conf; db_user,
db_type, db_host and db_name are also in there though I’ve used the
default values here as most people will have done.
You may also want to add “AND `reception_admin` = ‘mail’ “ to the
sql_query, in case you want to exclude admins with nomail set.
sql_query SELECT DISTINCT `user_admin` FROM `admin_table` WHERE
`role_admin` = 'owner' AND `reception_admin` = 'mail' order by
`user_admin`
This external datasource now means I have a list that will reliably
email all list owners at any particular time. I’ve also set mailmerge
on the list, and have a custom attribute to hold the list of listnames
for which they are owner; however to keep that in synch I’ve had to
resort to an external script that I run nightly. It does, however,
let me email people using mailmerge to give them the list of lists for
which they are owner, in case they have forgotten.
Hope someone finds this useful… comments and feedback welcome.
Steve
*Steve Shipway*
University of Auckland
/UNIX Systems Design Team Lead/
[phone] ext 86487

--
A bug in Sympa? Quick! To the bug tracker!
<https://sourcesup.renater.fr/tracker/?group_id=23>
RENATER logo
*David Verdin*
Études et projets applicatifs

Tél : [phone]
Fax : [phone]

www.renater.fr <http;//www.renater.fr>
RENATER
263 Avenue du Gal Leclerc
35042 Rennes Cedex

[Matt Taggart]

Post by David Verdin
As a matter of fact, I wonder if it would be useful to simply add a
reserved address for owners in Sympa. After all, the software could
perfectly give this feature out of the box. Any listmaster needs to
contact list owners from time to time.
The problem is that probably a lot of people already use such a list.
And a lot of people might have a copletely different list called "owners"
So maybe we could create a parameter - yes, yet another - that would
contain the local part of the list to contact list owners - and mlaybe
alos another one to tell whether we should exclude list owners that
don't want to receive mails.

lists.riseup.net also has such a list, we call it 'listadmins' and use this
query:

SELECT distinct user_admin FROM admin_table a JOIN list_table l ON
a.list_admin = l.name_list where l.status_list="open";

ie only mail admins of open lists.

I like Steve's idea of excluding admins with nomail set, although I can
think of cases where I might want them to get mail anyway.

We obviously restrict send access to the list and we also have forced
moderation even for permitted senders. (ours is 21k subscribers, we have to
be careful) If such a list were to exist by default, I guess it would be
restricted to listmasters?

One other thing I thought of, would such a default list be per robot or per
sympa install? (for lists.riseup.net it doesn't matter, we only have one
robot)

[David Verdin]

Hi Matt,

Post by Matt Taggart

Post by David Verdin
As a matter of fact, I wonder if it would be useful to simply add a
reserved address for owners in Sympa. After all, the software could
perfectly give this feature out of the box. Any listmaster needs to
contact list owners from time to time.
The problem is that probably a lot of people already use such a list.
And a lot of people might have a copletely different list called "owners"
So maybe we could create a parameter - yes, yet another - that would
contain the local part of the list to contact list owners - and mlaybe
alos another one to tell whether we should exclude list owners that
don't want to receive mails.

lists.riseup.net also has such a list, we call it 'listadmins' and use this
SELECT distinct user_admin FROM admin_table a JOIN list_table l ON
a.list_admin = l.name_list where l.status_list="open";
ie only mail admins of open lists.
I like Steve's idea of excluding admins with nomail set, although I can
think of cases where I might want them to get mail anyway.
We obviously restrict send access to the list and we also have forced
moderation even for permitted senders. (ours is 21k subscribers, we have to
be careful) If such a list were to exist by default, I guess it would be
restricted to listmasters?

By default, yes. But, well, you could still edit the send scenario.

Post by Matt Taggart
One other thing I thought of, would such a default list be per robot or per
sympa install? (for lists.riseup.net it doesn't matter, we only have one
robot)

I was considering per robot.
But...
I know some instances that grew to an outstandingly large number of
robots, so maybe we could add a "whole instance" mailing list.

Regards,

David
--
A bug in Sympa? Quick! To the bug tracker!
<https://sourcesup.renater.fr/tracker/?group_id=23>
RENATER logo
*David Verdin*
Études et projets applicatifs

Tél : [phone]
Fax : [phone]

www.renater.fr <http;//www.renater.fr>
RENATER
263 Avenue du Gal Leclerc
35042 Rennes Cedex

[Steve Shipway]

As a matter of fact, I wonder if it would be useful to simply add a reserved address for owners in Sympa. After all, the software could perfectly give this feature out of the box. Any listmaster needs to contact list owners from time to time.

I would not want this to be automatically created; there are simply too many differences in the way people work, and it is easy (once you know how) to set it up yourself.

The many differences include -
- what name to give the list of owners?
- what would be the default posting scenario?
- would it be for all robots or per robot?
- would you exclude 'nomail' admins?
- do you exclude closed lists?
- do you want to include editors?

So, I think it would be good to provide an example of ways to do it, but not add this by default, as there are simply too many options on how to achieve it and it you're unlikely to please most people!

I like Mike's idea of using a join and excluding the non-open lists; I hadn't thought of this addition. I'll probably make the change on my implementation.

Steve

Steve Shipway
University of Auckland ITS
UNIX Systems Design Lead
s.shipway-1/***@public.gmane.org<mailto:s.shipway-1/***@public.gmane.org>
Ph: [phone] ext 86487