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2.1 Organization
Here is a snapshot of what Sympa looks like once it has settled down
on your system. This also illustrates the Sympa philosophy, I guess.
Almost all configuration files can be defined for a particular list, for
a virtual host or for the whole site.
- /home/sympa
The root directory of Sympa. You will find almost everything
related to Sympa under this directory, except logs and main
configuration files.
- /home/sympa/bin
This directory contains the binaries, including the CGI. It
also contains the default authorization scenarios, templates and configuration
files as in the distribution. /home/sympa/bin may be completely
overwritten by the make install so you must not customize
templates and authorization scenarios under /home/sympa/bin.
- /home/sympa/bin/etc
Here Sympa stores the default versions of what it will otherwise find
in /home/sympa/etc (task models, authorization scenarios, templates and configuration
files, recognized S/Mime certificates, families).
- /home/sympa/etc
This is your site's configuration directory. Consult
/home/sympa/bin/etc when drawing up your own.
- /home/sympa/etc/create_list_templates/
List templates (suggested at list creation time).
- /home/sympa/etc/scenari/
This directory will contain your authorization scenarios.
If you don't know what the hell an authorization scenario is, refer to 14,page
. Those authorization scenarios are default scenarios but you may look at
/home/sympa/etc/my.domain.org/scenari/ for default scenarios of my.domain.org
virtual host and /home/sympa/expl/mylist/scenari for scenarios
specific to a particular list
- /home/sympa/etc/data_sources/
This directory will contain your .incl files (see 18.7, page
).
For the moment it only deals with files requiered by paragraphs owner_include and editor_include in the config file.
- /home/sympa/etc/list_task_models/
This directory will store your own list task models (see 17.8, page
).
- /home/sympa/etc/global_task_models/
Contains global task models of yours (see 17.8, page
).
- /home/sympa/etc/web_tt2/ (used to be /home/sympa/etc/wws_templates/)
The web interface (WWSympa) is composed of template HTML
files parsed by the CGI program. Templates can also
be defined for a particular list in /home/sympa/expl/mylist/web_tt2/
or in /home/sympa/etc/my.domain.org/web_tt2/
- /home/sympa/etc/mail_tt2/ (used to be /home/sympa/etc/templates/)
Some of the mail robot's replies are defined by templates
(welcome.tt2 for SUBSCRIBE). You can overload
these template files in the individual list directories or
for each virtual host, but these are the defaults.
- /home/sympa/etc/families/
Contains family directories of yours (see 19, page
).
Families directories can also be created in /home/sympa/etc/my.domain.org/families/
- /home/sympa/etc/my.domain.org
The directory to define the virtual host my.domain.orgdedicated to
managment of all lists of this domain (list description of my.domain.orgare stored
in /home/sympa/expl/my.domain.org).
Those directories for virtual hosts have the same structure as /home/sympa/etc which is
the configuration dir of the default robot.
- /home/sympa/expl
Sympa's working directory.
- /home/sympa/expl/mylist
The list directory (refer to 18,
page
). Lists stored in this directory
belong to the default robot as defined in sympa.conf file, but a list
can be stored in /home/sympa/expl/my.domain.org/mylist directory and it
is managed by my.domain.orgvirtual host.
- /home/sympa/expl/X509-user-certs
The directory where Sympa stores all user's certificates
- /home/sympa/locale
Internationalization directory. It contains message catalogues in the GNU .po format.
- /home/sympa/spool
Sympa uses 9 different spools (see 2.4, page
).
- /home/sympa/src/
Sympa sources.
2.2 Binaries
- sympa.pl
The main daemon ; it processes commands and delivers
messages. Continuously scans the msg/ spool.
- sympa_wizard.pl
A wizard to edit sympa.conf and wwsympa.conf.
Maybe it is a good idea to run it at the beginning, but these
file can also be edited with your favorite text editor.
- wwsympa.fcgi
The CGI program offering a complete web interface
to mailing lists. It can work in both classical CGI and
FastCGI modes, although we recommend FastCGI mode, being
up to 10 times faster.
- bounced.pl
This daemon processes bounces (non-delivered messages),
looking for bad addresses. List owners will later
access bounce information via WWSympa. Continuously scans
the bounce/ spool.
- archived.pl
This daemon feeds the web archives, converting messages
to HTML format and linking them. It uses the amazing
MhOnArc. Continuously scans the outgoing/
spool.
- task_manager.pl
The daemon which manages the tasks : creation, checking, execution.
It regularly scans the task/ spool.
- sympa_soap_server.fcgi
The server will process SOAP (web services) request. This server requires FastCGI ;
it should be referenced from within your HTTPS config.
- queue
This small program gets the incoming messages from the aliases
and stores them in msg/ spool.
- bouncequeue
Same as queue for bounces. Stores bounces in
bounce/ spool.
- /etc/sympa.conf
The main configuration file.
See 7, page
.
- /etc/wwsympa.conf
WWSympa configuration file.
See 1.2, page
.
- edit_list.conf
Defines which parameters/files are editable by
owners. See 19.4.4, page
.
- topics.conf
Contains the declarations of your site's topics (classification in
WWSympa), along with their titles. A sample is provided in the
sample/ directory of the sympa distribution.
See 17.5, page
.
- auth.conf
Defines authentication backend organisation ( LDAP-based authentication, CAS-based authentication and sympa internal )
- robot.conf
It is a subset of sympa.conf defining a Virtual host
(one per Virtual host).
- nrcpt_by_domain
This file is used to limit the number of recipients per SMTP session. Some ISPs trying to block spams
rejects sessions with too many recipients. In such case you can set the 7.4.8 robot.conf parameter
to a lower value but this will affect all smtp session with any remote MTA. This file is used to limit the number
of receipient for some particular domains. the file must contain a list of domain followed by the maximum number
of recipient per SMTP session. Example :
- data_structure.version
This file is automatically created and maintained by Sympa itself. It contains the current version of your Sympa service
and is used to detect upgrades and trigger maintenance procedures such as database structure changes.
yohaa.com 3
oal.com 5
2.4 Spools
See 7.6, page
for spool definition
in sympa.conf.
- /home/sympa/spool/auth/
For storing messages until they have been confirmed.
- /home/sympa/spool/bounce/
For storing incoming bouncing messages.
- /home/sympa/spool/digest/
For storing lists' digests before they are sent.
- /home/sympa/spool/mod/
For storing unmoderated messages.
- /home/sympa/spool/msg/
For storing incoming messages (including commands).
- /home/sympa/spool/msg/bad/
Sympa stores rejected messages in this directory
- /home/sympa/spool/distribute/
For storing message ready for distribution. This spool is used only if the installation run 2 sympa.pl daemon, one for commands, one for messages.
- /home/sympa/spool/distribute/bad/
Sympa stores rejected messages in this directory
- /home/sympa/spool/task/
For storing all created tasks.
- /home/sympa/spool/outgoing/
sympa.pl dumps messages in this spool to await archiving
by archived.pl.
- /home/sympa/spool/topic/
For storing topic information files.
2.5 Roles and privileges
You can assign roles to users (via their email addresses) at different level in Sympa ; privileges are associated (or can be associated) to these roles.
We list these roles below (from the most powerful to the less), along with the relevent privileges.
These are the persons administrating the service, defined in the sympa.conf file. They inherit the listmaster role in virtual hosts and are the default set
of listmasters for virtual hosts.
You can define a different set of listmasters at a virtual host level (in the robot.conf file). They are responsible for moderating mailing lists creation (if list creation is configured this way), editing default templates, providing help to list owners and moderators. Users defined as listmasters get a privileged access to Sympa web interface. Listmasters also inherit the privileges of list owners (for any list defined in the virtual host), but not the moderator privileges.
The first defined privileged owner is the person who requested the list creation. Later it can be changed or extended. They inherit (basic) owners privileges and are also responsible for managing the list owners and editors themselves (via the web interface). With Sympa'd default behavior, privileged owners can edit more list parameters than (basic) owners can do ; but this can be customized via the edit-list.conf file.
They are responsible for managing the members of the list, editing the list configuration and templates. Owners (and privileged owners) are defined in the list config file.
Moderators are responsible for the messages distributed in the mailing list (as opposed to owners who look after list members). Moderators are active if the list has been setup as a moderated mailing list. If no moderator is defined for the list, then list owners will inherit the moderator role.
Subscribers are the persons who are member of a mailing list ; they either subscribed, or got added directly by the listmaster or via a datasource (LDAP, SQL, another list,...). These subscribers receive messages posted in the list (unless they have set the nomail option) and have special privileges to post in the mailing list (unless it is a newsletter). Most privileges a subscriber may have is not hardcoded in Sympa but expressed via the so-called authorization scenarios (see 14, page
).
Next: 3. Installing Sympa
Up: Sympa Mailing Lists Management Software version
Previous: 1. Presentation
Contents
Index
root
2006-11-06