How to manage your mail on BaseSpace's server ============================================= BaseSpace provides several options for mail aliases and lists. DOMAIN-SPECIFIC ALIASES: If you need an address that will distribute mail to just a few people, or an alias or alternate name for a single address, you can use a domain-specific alias in your virtual file. FILE ALIASES: If you need an address that will expand to a longer list, which you will maintain in a file, we can set up a file alias for you. MAILMAN: If you would like a listserv-style list with a web-based list administration interface, we can set up a list for you which will use the Mailman list maintenance package. ARCHIVING: If you would like any of these types of lists archived, we can set up an address which will send the mail to MHonArc, a mail archiving package. Domain-specific aliases ----------------------- On the BaseSpace primary mail server, in your client directory, in the "mail" subdirectory, there is a file called "virtual". This is your domain's virtual alias file. By editing this file, you can set up short lists and aliases. You can edit this file on your own without needing intervention from BaseSpace staff, and changes will take effect in at most 30 minutes. The format of a line in the virtual file is alias@your.domain user,address@somewhere.else,user,user... For example: staff@basespace.net alex,jenise,swygal@hotmail.com File-based lists ---------------- For longer lists, a file-based alias may be appropriate. BaseSpace.net staff will set up each list for you, but once set up you can manage the list by editing the file yourself. Each such list will have a corresponding file in the directory /home//mail/lists/ which should contain all the addresses you wish to have included on the list, one per line. Mailman lists ------------- Mailman is a GNU package for maintaining mailing lists. Extensive documentation is available at http://www.list.org/ Mailman supports moderated lists, digests, self-subscription and un-subscription, and a host of other features. Setting up a Mailman list must be done by BaseSpace staff, but once the list is up and running you will be able to maintain it yourself using the Mailman web interface. Archiving messages ------------------ MHonArc is an open source package for creating archives of mail. Documentation is available at http://www.mhonarc.org/ We can set up an alias so that, when mail is sent to that address, it will be piped into the mhonarc software and automatically added to a web-browsable archive. Assuming you are hosting a web site on the BaseSpace server, the archives would go into the directory: /home//www./mailarchive// and would be accessible through the URLs: http://www./mailarchive//threads.html http://www./mailarchive//maillist.html If you would like to customize the appearance of your archives, you can edit a mhonarc.rc file in that directory, as described in the MHonArc documentation. Setting up an archive alias will have to be done by BaseSpace.net staff, but once the alias is created you will be responsible for adding that address to the list that you would like archived. It is possible for a single archival alias to be subscribed to multiple lists, and collect an archive of all of them (though note that the messages will not be sortable by list in that case), and it is possible for a single list to have multiple archive aliases be subsribed to it.