Working with MinorDomo Raw

MinorDomo is a "minimalistic replacement for 
[MajorDomo](http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/)". In this guide:

*   I have my MinorDomo lists at `/home/minordomo`
*   I'll be creating a list called `developers@example.com`
    *   All messages sent to this list will be archived
    *   Only individuals on the list can send messages to the list (i.e. it's not 'open')

Creating a new mailing list
---------------------------

First copy over the sample list to the MinorDomo lists folder:

    cd /home/minordomo
    cp -r /usr/doc/minordomo-0.6.1/sample-list developers

Here's a table of entities in the folder you just copied. Keep in that some of 
these might not exist!

|     Name    |    Type   |                                                                                                                             Function                                                                                                                             |
|-------------|-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `list`      | File      | Contains email addresses, one per line                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| `footer`    | File      | Contains text which is to be appended to every message sent to this list (e.g. disclaimer, unsubscribe info). 
 Can use placeholders for administrator email (`\a`), domain name (`\d`), mailing list name (`\l`, sans domain), lisr URI (`\u`).                 |
| `info`      | File      | Information on the list. Obtained by an email to the list with subject line "**info developers**"                                                                                                                                                                |
| `one-liner` | File      | A one-line description of the list                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
| `config`    | File      | List configuration file. If present, overrides `/etc/minordomo.conf` Two important directives: 
 `open_lists=none` makes this a 'closed' list 
 `subject_prefix=[Developers List]` gives each message a prefix "Developers List"                           |
| `archive`   | Directory | All messages sent to the list are saved in this folder. It is not created when you copy the sample list above. Messages are stored in YYYY/MM/DD/ sub-folders. You can get awesome HTML output with [HyperMail](http://www.hypermail-project.org/hypermail.html) |

* Once you're done editing things to your heart's content, **change the permissions** to `nobody:nobody`. 
* Then **add the following** to `/etc/aliases`:

        developers: "|/usr/sbin/minordomo.pl developers"

* Rebuild the aliases DB by **issuing** `newaliases`

Now test the list with an email. 

Working with MinorDomo Lists
----------------------------

Sending an email to `minordomo@example.com` with the following subject lines does a variety of things:

|    Subject Line    |                Action                |
|--------------------|--------------------------------------|
| subscribe ``   | subscribes to a mailing list         |
| unsubscribe `` | unsubscribes from a mailing list     |
| info [``]      | gets information on a list or server |
| list ``        | returns a subscriber list if enabled |

Sample HyperMail Script
-----------------------

    #!/usr/bin/perl -w

    umask 0000;

    $archive_dir = "/home/minordomo/archive";
    $output_dir = "/home/minordomo/archive/html";

    @years = `ls $archive_dir`;
    chomp @years;

    foreach $year (@years) {

            unless (-e "$output_dir/$year") {
                    mkdir "$output_dir/$year";
            }
            `find $archive_dir/$year -type f | xargs cat | /usr/local/bin/hypermail -x -d $output_dir/$year`;
    }