Template files within Sympa and WWSympa are text files containing programming elements (variables, conditions, loops, file inclusions) that will be parsed in order to adapt to the runtime context. These templates are an extension of programs and therefore give access to a limited list of variables (those defined in the 'hash' parameter given to the parser).
Review the Site template files (9.2, page )
and List template files (10.6, page
).
The following describes the syntactical elements of templates.
Variables are enclosed between brackets '[]'. The variable name
is composed of alphanumerics (0-1a-zA-Z) or underscores (_).
The syntax for accessing an element in a 'hash' is [hash-elt].
Examples:
[url] [is_owner] [list->name] [user->lang]
For each template you wish to customize, check the available variables in the documentation.
Conditions include variable comparisons (= and <>), or existence. Syntactical elements for conditions are [IF xxx], [ELSE], [ELSIF xxx] and [ENDIF].
Examples:
[IF user->lang=fr] Bienvenue dans la liste [list->name] [ELSIF user->lang=es] Bienvenida en la lista [list->name] [ELSE] Welcome in list [list->name] [ENDIF] [IF is_owner] The following commands are available only for lists owners or moderators: .... [ENDIF]
Loops make it possible to traverse a list of elements (internally represented by a 'hash' or an 'array').
Example :
A review of public lists [FOREACH l IN lists] [l->NAME] [l->subject] [END]
[elt-NAME] is a special element of the current entry providing
the key in the 'hash' (in this example the name of the list). When traversing
an 'array', [elt-
INDEX] is the index of the current
entry.
You can include another file within a template . The specified file can be included as is, or itself parsed (there is no loop detection). The file path is either specified in the directive or accessed in a variable.
Inclusion of a text file :
[INCLUDE 'archives/last_message'] [INCLUDE file_path]
The first example includes a file whose relative path is archives/last_message. The second example includes a file whose path is in file_path variable.
Inclusion and parsing of a template file :
[PARSE 'welcome.tpl'] [PARSE file_path]
The first example includes the template file welcome.tpl. The second example includes a template file whose path is in file_path variable.
You may need to exclude certain lines in a template from the parsing process. You can perform this by stopping and restarting the parsing.
Escaping sensitive JavaScript functions :
<HEAD> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> <!-- for other browsers function toggle_selection(myfield) { for (i = 0; i < myfield.length; i++) { [STOPPARSE] if (myfield[i].checked) { myfield[i].checked = false; }else { myfield[i].checked = true; } [escaped_start] } } // end browsers --> </SCRIPT> </HEAD>
These files are used by Sympa as service messages for the HELP,
LISTS and REMIND * commands. These files are interpreted
(parsed) by Sympa and respect the template format ; every file has a .tpl extension.
See 9.1,
page .
Sympa looks for these files in the following order (where list
is the
listname if defined,
action
is the name of the command, and
lang
is
the preferred language of the user) :
If the file starts with a From: line, it is considered as a full message and will be sent (after parsing) without adding SMTP headers. Otherwise the file is treated as a text/plain message body.
The following variables may be used in these template files :
This file is sent in response to a HELP command. You may use additional variables
File returned by LISTS command. An additional variable is available :
Example:
These are the public lists for [conf->email]@[conf->host] [FOREACH l IN lists] [l->NAME]: [l->subject] [END]
This file is sent in response to a REMIND * command.
(see 17.2, page )
You may use additional variables
Example:
This is a subscription reminder. You are subscribed to the following lists : [FOREACH l IN lists [l] : [conf->wwsympa\_url]/info/[l] [END] Your subscriber e-mail : [user->email] Your password : [user->password]
This message is sent to warn the sender of a virus infected mail,
indicating the name of the virus found
(see 16, page ).
You may define your own web template files, different from the standard ones. WWSympa first looks for list specific web templates, then for site web templates, before falling back on its defaults.
Your list web template files should be placed in the ~sympa/expl/mylist/wws_templates directory ; your site web templates in ~sympa/expl/wws_templates directory.
Note that web colors are defined in Sympa's main Makefile (see 3.3,
page ).
You may extract subscribers for a list from any of :
See lparam user_data_source liste parameter 13.2.1, page .
The subscriber_table and user_table can have more fields than
the one used by Sympa. by defining these additional fields, they will be available
from within Sympa's scenario and templates (see 4.9.9,
page and 4.9.10, page
).
You might want to make other web applications collaborate with Sympa, and share the same authentication system. Sympa uses HTTP cookies to carry users' auth information from page to page. This cookie carries no information concerning privileges. To make your application work with Sympa, you have two possibilities :
user=<user_email>:<md5>
where <user_email> is the user's complete e-mail address, and <md5> is a MD5 checksum of the <user_email>+Sympa cookie configuration parameter. Your application needs to know what the cookie parameter is, so it can check the HTTP cookie validity ; this is a secret shared between WWSympa and your application. WWSympa's loginrequest page can be called to return to the referrer URL when an action is performed. Here is a sample HTML anchor :
<A HREF="/wws/loginrequest/referrer">Login page</A>
Sympa was originally designed as a multilingual Mailing List Manager. Even in its earliest versions, Sympa separated messages from the code itself, messages being stored in NLS catalogues (according to the XPG4 standard). Later a lang list parameter was introduced. Nowadays Sympa is able to keep track of individual users' language preferences.
Every message sent by Sympa to users, owners and editors is outside the code, in a message catalog. These catalogs are located in the ~sympa/nls/ directory. Messages have currently been translated into 10 different languages :
To tell Sympa to use a particular message catalog, you can either set the lang parameter in sympa.conf, or set the sympa.pl -l option on the command line.
The lang list parameter defines the language for a list. It is currently used by WWSympa and to initialize users' language preferences at subscription time.
In future versions, all messages returned by Sympa concerning a list should be in the list's language.
The user language preference is currently used by WWSympa only. There is no e-mail-based command for a user to set his/her language. The language preference is initialized when the user subscribes to his/her first list. WWSympa allows the user to change it.
WWSympa's homepage shows a list of topics for classifying mailing lists. This is dynamically generated using the different lists' topics configuration parameters. A list may appear in multiple categories.
The list of topics is defined in the topics.conf configuration file, located in the ~sympa/etc directory. The format of this file is as follows :
<topic1_name> title <topic1 title> visibility <topic1 visibility> .... <topicn_name/subtopic_name> title <topicn title>
You will notice that subtopics can be used, the separator being /. The topic name is composed of alphanumerics (0-1a-zA-Z) or underscores (_). The order in which the topics are listed is respected in WWSympa's homepage. The visibility line defines who can view the topic (now available for subtopics). It refers to the associated topics_visibility scenario. You will find a sample topics.conf in the sample directory ; NONE is installed as the default.
A default topic is hard-coded in Sympa: default. This default topic contains all lists for which a topic has not been specified.
List parameters controlling the behavior of commands are linked to different scenarii.
For example : the send private parameter is related to the send.private scenario.
There are three possible locations for a scenario. When Sympa seeks to apply a scenario, it
looks first in the related list directory ~sympa/expl/list
/scenari. If it
does not find the file there, it scans ~sympa/etc/scenari,
and finally ~sympa/bin/etc/scenari, which is the directory installed by the Makefile.
A scenario is a small configuration language to describe who can perform an operation and which authentication method is requested for it. A scenario is an ordered set of rules. The goal is to provide a simple and flexible way to configure authorization and authentication for each operation.
Each scenario rule contains :
Example
del.auth
title.us deletion performed only by list owners, need authentication title.fr suppression réservée au propriétaire avec authentification title.es eliminación reservada sólo para el propietario, necesita autentificación is_owner([listname],[sender]) smtp -> request_auth is_listmaster([sender]) smtp -> request_auth true() md5,smime -> do_it
A scenario consists of rules, evaluated in order beginning with the first. Rules are defined as follows :
<rule> ::= <condition> <auth_list> -> <action> <condition> ::= [!] <condition | true () | all () | equal (<var>, <var>) | match (<var>, /perl_regexp/) | is_subscriber (<listname>, <var>) | is_owner (<listname>, <var>) | is_editor (<listname>, <var>) | is_listmaster (<var>) | older (<date>, <date>) # true if first date is anterior to the second date | newer (<date>, <date>) # true if first date is posterior to the second date <var> ::= [email] | [sender] | [user-><user_key_word>] | [subscriber-><subscriber_key_word>] | [list-><list_key_word>] | [conf-><conf_key_word>] | [msg_header-><smtp_key_word>] | [msg_body] | [msg_part->type] | [msg_part->body] | [is_bcc] | <string> [is_bcc] ::= set to 1 if the list is neither in To: nor Cc: <date> ::= <epoch date> | <date format (see \ref {tasks}, page~\pageref {tasks})> <listname> ::= [listname] | <listname_string> <auth_list> ::= <auth>,<auth_list> | <auth> <auth> ::= smtp|md5|smime <action> ::= do_it [,notify] | do_it [,quiet] | reject(<tpl_name>) | request_auth | owner | editor | editorkey <tpl_name> ::= corresponding template (<tpl_name>.tpl) is send to the sender <user_key_word> ::= email | gecos | lang | password | cookie_delay_user | <additional_user_fields> <subscriber_key_word> ::= email | gecos | bounce | reception | visibility | date | update_date | <additional_subscriber_fields> <list_key_word> ::= name | host | lang | max_size | priority | reply_to | status | subject | account | <conf_key_word> ::= host | email | listmaster | default_list_priority | sympa_priority | request_priority | lang | max_size
perl_regexp can contain the string [host] (interpreted at run time as the list or robot domain).
The variable notation [msg_header-<smtp_key_word>] is interpreted as the SMTP header value only when performing
the sending message scenario. It can be used, for example, to require editor validation for multipart messages.
[msg_part-
type] and [msg_part-
body] are the MIME parts content-types and bodies ; the body is available
for MIME parts in text/xxx format only.
A bunch of scenarii is provided with the Sympa distribution ; they provide
all possible configurations as defined in previous releases of Sympa
(= 2.3) without any change in your list configuration files.
These standard scenarii are located in the ~sympa/bin/scenari/ directory. Default scenarii are named <command>.default.
You may also define and name your own scenarii. Store them in the ~sympa/etc/scenari directory. Example:
Copy the previous scenario to scenari/subscribe.rennes1 :
equal([sender], 'userxxx@univ-rennes1.fr') smtp,smime -> reject match([sender], /univ-rennes1\.fr$/) smtp,smime -> do_it true() smtp,smime -> owner
You may now refer to this scenario in any list configuration file, for example :
subscribe rennes1
Scenarii can also contain includes :
subscribe include commonreject match([sender], /cru\.fr$/) smtp,smime -> do_it true() smtp,smime -> owner
In this case sympa applies recursively the scenario named include.commonreject before introducing the other rules. This possibility was introduced in order to facilitate the administration of common rules.
You can define a set of common scenario rules, used by all lists. include.<action>.header is automatically added to evaluated scenarios.
Sympa uses multiple tools to avoid loops in Mailing lists
First, it rejects messages coming from a robot (as indicated by the From: and other header fields), and messages containing commands.
Secondly, every message sent by Sympa includes an X-Loop header field set to the listname. If the message comes back, Sympa will detect that it has already been sent (unless X-Loop header fields have been erased).
Thirdly, Sympa keeps track of Message IDs and will refuse to send multiple messages with the same message ID to the same mailing list.
Finally, Sympa detect loops arising from command reports (i.e. sympa-generated replies to commands). This sort of loop might occur as follows:
1 - X sends a command to Sympa 2 - Sympa sends a command report to X 3 - X has installed a home-made vacation program replying to programs 4 - Sympa processes the reply and sends a report 5 - Looping to step 3
Sympa keeps track (via an internal counter) of reports sent to any particular address. The loop detection algorithm is :
A task is a sequence of simple actions which realize a complex routine. It is executed in background by the task manager daemon and allow the list master to automate the processing of recurrent tasks. For example a task sends every year the subscribers of a list a message to remind their subscription.
A task is created with a task model. It is a text file which describes a sequence of simple actions. It may have different versions (for instance reminding subscribers every year or semester). A task model file name has the following format : <model name>.<model version>.task. For instance remind.annual.task or remind.semestrial.task.
Sympa provides several task models stored in ~sympa/bin/etc/global_task_models and ~sympa/bin/etc/list_task_models directories. Others can be designed by the list master.
A task is global or related to a list.
You define in the list config file which model with which version you want to use (see
13.3.5, page ). Then the task manager daemon will automatically
create the task by looking for the appropriate model file in differents directories in the
following order :
See also 10.8, page , to know more about standard list models provided with Sympa.
The task manager daemon checks if a version of a global task model is specified in sympa.conf and then creates a task as soon as it finds the model file by looking in different directories in the following order :
Model files are composed of comments, labels, references, variables, date values and commands. All those syntactical elements are composed of alphanumerics (0-9a-zA-Z) and underscores (_).
Here is the list of current avalaible commands :
Stops the execution of the task and delete the task file
Stop the execution. The task will go on at the date value and begin at the label line.
Delete @user_selection email list and stores user emails successfully deleted in @deleted_users.
Send the template message to emails stored in @user_selection.
Store emails which match the condition in @user_selection. See 8.6 Scenarii section to know how to write conditions. Only available for list models.
Create a task for object with model file ~model type.model.task.
Send the template message to emails whose certificate has expired or will expire before the date value.
Update certificate revocation lists (CRL) which are expired or will expire before the date value. The file stores the CRL's URLs.
Model files may have a scenario-like title line at the beginning.
When you change a configuration file by hand, and a task parameter is created or modified, it is up to you to remove existing task files in the task/ spool if needed. Task file names have the following format :
<date>.<label>.<model name>.<list name | global> where :
title.fr mise a jour quotidienne des listes de révocation title.us daily certificate revocation list update title.hu napi frissítése a hitelesítési bizonylatok visszavonásának /ACTION update_crl (CA_list, [execution_date]+1d) next ([execution_date] + 1d, ACTION)