34.12. Creating a Digest List

A digest mailing list is one that combines several messages from another list into a single email before sending it to subscribers. Digests are always associated with normal lists and have their own subscribers who only receive postings in digest format. Digests are never moderated, and are not posted to by subscribers—instead, posts go to the original list.

The number of messages that are combined into a single digest email can be determined by their size, or by a time period. Majordomo can be configured to send out a new digest once it reaches a certain size, or after a certain number of days from the time the first message was added. It will never send out an empty email to digest subscribers.

The process of adding a digest list is similar to that for adding a normal list, as explained in Section 34.4 “Creating a Mailing List”. To add a digest list, follow these instructions:

1.
On the module's main page, click on the Add a new digest list link. This will take you to the list creation form, which is similar to the one shown in Figure 34.2.

2.
Enter a name for the list into the List name field, such as example-digest. Traditionally, a digest list will have the same name as the original list, but with –digest added to the name.

3.
Select the name of the original list that you want to send out in digest form from the Make digest of list menu. Although it is possible to have a digest of a digest, this is not very useful in practice.

4.
Enter the address of the person who is responsible for this list into the List maintainer's address field.

5.
Enter a password for the maintainer to use in the Maintenance password field.

6.
In the Description field, enter a short description of this digest that will be displayed next to its name when a user sends the lists command to Majordomo.

7.
Fill in the Introductory message field with a message that will be sent to all new list members when they subscribe.

8.
Fill in the Digest mail footer field to have a footer appended to each digest sent out.

9.
To have the digest sent on a regular schedule, select Oldest message is for the Send digest when field and enter the number of days between digests into the adjacent field. This assumes that messages are being regularly posted to the list. Because Majordomo only checks the age of the digest when a message is added, it is possible in practice for the interval to be greater than the specified number of days.

To have a digest email sent out when it reaches a certain size, select the Messages total option and enter the minimum number of lines that the digest must reach into the adjacent field. As soon as it exceeds this limit, the digest will be sent to subscribers.

10.
Finally, click Create to have Webmin create the new digest list and all the Sendmail aliases that it needs. The alias for the original list will be updated to support the digest as well.

Once a digest list has been added, an icon for it will appear on the main page. Just as with a normal list, you can click on it and then on the category icons to edit the membership list and change settings such as the subscription policy, footers, Reply-To: address, and so on. Typically the Reply-To: address should be set so that replies to a digest email go to the original mailing list—in fact, there is no way to post directly to a digest list created by Webmin. Any mail to [email protected] will bounce because the module does not create a mail alias with that name.

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